Alternative Influence: | Data & Society

Data & Society Research Institute datasociety.net

ENDNOTES

Alternative

Inuence:

Broadcasting the

Reactionary Right

on YouTube

Rebecca Lewis

Data & Society Research Institute datasociety.net

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

This report identiﬁes and names the Alternative Inﬂuence Network (AIN): an

assortment of scholars, media pundits, and internet celebrities who use YouTube to

promote a range of political positions, from mainstream versions of libertarianism

and conservatism, all the way to overt white nationalism. Content creators in the AIN

claim to provide an alternative media source for news and political commentary. They

function as political inﬂuencers who adopt the techniques of brand inﬂuencers to

build audiences and “sell” them on far-right ideology.

This report presents data from approximately 65 political inﬂuencers across 81 channels.

This network is connected through a dense system of guest appearances, mixing content

from a variety of ideologies. This cross-promotion of ideas forms a broader “reactionary”

position: a general opposition to feminism, social justice, or left-wing politics.

Members of the AIN cast themselves as an alternative media system by:

• Establishing an alternative sense of credibility based on relatability,

authenticity, and accountability.

• Cultivating an alternative social identity using the image of a social

underdog, and countercultural appeal.

Members of the AIN use the proven engagement techniques of brand inﬂuencers to

spread ideological content:

• Ideological Testimonials

• Political Self-Branding

• Search Engine Optimization

• Strategic Controversy

The AIN as a whole facilitates radicalization through social networking practices:

• Audiences are able to easily move from mainstream to extreme content

through guest appearances and other links.

• Political inﬂuencers themselves often shift to more radical positions

following interactions with other inﬂuencers or their own audiences.

When viewers engage with this content, it is framed as lighthearted, entertaining,

rebellious, and fun. This fundamentally obscures the impact that issues have on

vulnerable and underrepresented populations—the LGBTQ community, women,

immigrants, and people of color. And in many ways, YouTube is built to incentivize

this behavior. The platform needs to not only assess what channels say in their

content, but also who they host and what their guests say. In a media environment

consisting of networked inﬂuencers, YouTube must respond with policies that

account for inﬂuence and ampliﬁcation, as well as social networks.

Data & Society Research Institute datasociety.net

CONTENTS

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 1

CONTENTS 2

INTRODUCTION 3

METHODS 6

PART 1: THE ALTERNATIVE INFLUENCE NETWORK 8

PART 2: BUILDING AN ALTERNATIVE MEDIA 15

ALTERNATIVE CREDIBILITY 16

Relatability 17

Authenticity 18

Accountability 19

ALTERNATIVE SOCIAL IDENTITY 20

Social Underdogs 21

Countercultural Appeal 22

PART 3: PROMOTING IDEOLOGY THROUGH

INFLUENCER MARKETING 25

Ideological Testimonials 25

Political Self-Branding 28

Search Engine Optimization 30

Strategic Controversy 31

PART 4: FACILITATING RADICALIZATION THROUGH

SOCIAL NETWORKING 35

Audience Radicalization 36

Inuencer Radicalization 39

CONCLUSION 43

APPENDIX A: INDEX OF AIN INFLUENCERS 45

APPENDIX B: NETWORK VISUALIZATION 49

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 52

DATA & SOCIETY 53

ENDNOTES 54

This report is published under Data & Society’s Media Manipulation research initiative; for more

information on the initiative, including focus areas, researchers, and funders, please visit

https://datasociety.net/research/media-manipulation.

Data & Society Research Institute datasociety.net

INTRODUCTION

For a short time on January 4, 2018, the most popular livestreamed video on YouTube

was a broadcast dominated by white nationalists. More speciﬁcally, it was a stream

by YouTubers Andy Warski and Jean-François Gariépy, facilitating a debate between a

white nationalist and a libertarian. The debate topic was scientiﬁc racism, which they

refer to as “race realism”—a contemporary incarnation of the long-standing claims

that there are measurable scientiﬁc differences between races of humans. Arguing

in favor of scientiﬁc racism was infamous white nationalist Richard Spencer, known

for having popularized the term “alt-right.”

Ostensibly on the other side was Carl

Benjamin, a YouTuber who goes by the pseudonym Sargon of Akkad. During the

broadcast, the debate became the #1 trending live video worldwide on YouTube, with

over 10,000 active viewers. The archived version of the broadcast has been viewed an

additional 475,000 times.

The four participants carried out their debate via Google Hangouts, and the video

lasted more than four-and-a-half hours; they were joined at various times by other

YouTubers. During the broadcast, participants debated a range of positions popular

in white supremacist communities, using academic terminology and treating the

topics as theoretical discourse. They discussed, for example, whether monogamy

was a development of “Western culture” and whether there are biological qualities

that constitute “whiteness.” Spencer has had years of experience arguing his racial

theories and spoke with more conﬁdence than Benjamin. In the live comments and

through subsequent reactions on social media, many audience members responded

positively to Spencer’s performance. “I’ve never really listened to Spencer speak

before,” said one user with the pseudonym Nashmau. “But it is immediately apparent

that he’s on a whole different level.” More broadly, commenters praised the debate and

expressed excitement about its popularity. “Half a million views in only 3 weeks. I

honestly think this is a sign that people are hungry for what’s good for humanity,” one

commenter wrote. They followed it up by stating, “Ethnic nationalism is freedom for

everybody.”

This debate is part of a larger phenomenon, in which YouTubers attempt to

reach young audiences by broadcasting far-right ideas in the form of news and

entertainment. An assortment of scholars, media pundits, and internet celebrities are

using YouTube to promote a range of political positions, from mainstream versions

of libertarianism and conservatism, all the way to overt white nationalism. While

many of their views differ signiﬁcantly, they all share a fundamental contempt for

progressive politics—speciﬁcally for contemporary social justice movements. For

this reason, I consider their collective position “reactionary,” as it is deﬁned by its

Data & Society Research Institute datasociety.net

INTRODUCTION

opposition to visions of social progress.

United in this standpoint, these YouTubers

frequently collaborate with and appear with others across ideological lines. Together,

they have created a fully functioning media system that I call the Alternative

Inﬂuence Network (AIN).

The content creators in the AIN claim to provide an alternative media source for

viewers to obtain news and political commentary, outside of legacy news outlets such

as cable channels and print media. With this positioning, they are capitalizing on a

changing news and information environment. YouTube has become a crucial site for

broadcasting political and news-related content. A 2018 Pew Research Center report

found that 73% of US adults visit YouTube, with the percentage rising to 94% for 18-

to 24-year-olds.

As of 2017, YouTube fell behind only Facebook as the social network

most popular for viewing news stories.

Simultaneously, trust in mainstream media

outlets is continually in decline, with only 32% of Americans claiming to trust the

media in a 2016 Gallup Poll.

The AIN also relies on YouTube’s ability to support a type of “microcelebrity,” that is,

niche celebrities who are well-known within speciﬁc communities. The platform’s

motto, “Broadcast Yourself,” encourages individuals to build audiences and promote

themselves outside of the conﬁnes of legacy media outlets. YouTube also provides

ﬁnancial incentives for individuals to broadcast and build audiences. Speciﬁcally,

YouTube has a Partner Program (the YPP) which is open to content creators who

have received 4,000 “watch hours” over the course of a year and have at least 1,000

subscribers. YouTube gives these content creators a small proportion of advertising

revenue for the videos they post (YouTube keeps the rest). Content creators can also

relay their popularity on YouTube into monetary gains on other platforms. One of

the most popular ways to do this is through fundraising website Patreon, where

fans make monthly donations for the content they support. As a result of YouTube’s

Partner Program and outside sources like Patreon, individuals can often turn content

creation on YouTube into lucrative full-time careers.

Because of their high visibility and marketing potential within communities on

social platforms, some content creators become inﬂuencers in their communities—

people who shape public opinion and advertise goods and services through the

“conscientious calibration” of their online personae.

Inﬂuencers often develop

highly intimate and transparent relationships with their audiences and then

“capitalize on their followers by inserting advertisements for products and services”

into their lifestyle content.

While the individuals of the AIN are not generally

selling goods or services, they adopt the techniques of inﬂuencers to build audiences

and “sell” them on far-right ideology. For this reason, I refer to these content creators

as political inﬂuencers.

Data & Society Research Institute datasociety.net

Digital media scholar Crystal Abidin has noted that celebrity and inﬂuencer

culture is often ascribed a presumed “frivolity” that leads to its underestimation

among academics and journalists.

However, she argues that online celebrities can

often convey deceptively subversive and powerful messages. Indeed, one reason

YouTube is so effective for circulating political ideas is because it is often ignored or

underestimated in discourse on the rise of disinformation and far-right movements.

Yet at the same time, the members of the AIN are experiencing great success,

with a countless number of their videos showing up in search results and video

recommendations. This means that, increasingly, understanding the circulation of

extremist political content does not just involve fringe communities and anonymous

actors. Instead, it requires us to scrutinize polished, well-lit microcelebrities and the

captivating videos that are easily available on the pages of the internet’s most popular

video platform.

Inﬂuence is not created in a vacuum—it occurs within, and propagates through,

social networks.

Part of the way inﬂuencers build followings is by becoming “nodes

around which other networks of opinions and inﬂuencers cluster.”

One of the most

effective ways to network on YouTube is by referencing and including other people

in video content.

In fact, how-to manuals for building inﬂuence on YouTube often

list collaborations as one of the most effective strategies.

These guides suggest guest

appearances, guest hosts, and collaborative

appearances as strategies for content creators

to grow exposure and multiply audiences.

This report documents the composition of the

AIN and analyzes the techniques used by its

members to build an alternative news media

system, repurposing inﬂuencer marketing

techniques to impart ideological ideas to

their audiences. In part 1, I diagram the AIN:

a loose set of approximately 65 YouTube inﬂuencers across more than 80 channels.

Among these channels, I document the thick network of guest appearances that

helps to build audiences and also to move those audiences between channels and

political positions. I also show how this networking is driven by, and results in, a set

of shared ideas about progressive politics and social justice. In part 2, I showcase how

this network provides audiences with an alternative media source meant to counter

the traditional news media. Speciﬁcally, I show how inﬂuencers reject traditional

journalistic credibility markers in favor of the intimacy of participatory media. I

also show how this alternative media system provides inﬂuencers and audiences

alike with an appealing, countercultural social identity. In part 3, I show how

political inﬂuencers have implemented the marketing tactics of brand inﬂuencers

INTRODUCTION

...increasingly, understanding the

circulation of extremist political content

does not just involve fringe communities

and anonymous actors. Instead, it

requires us to scrutinize polished, well-lit

microcelebrities and the captivating videos

that are easily available on the pages of the

internet’s most popular video platform.

Data & Society Research Institute datasociety.net

METHODS

to impart ideological content to their viewers. These practices include ideological

testimonials, political self-branding, search engine optimization, and the strategic use

of controversy. In part 4, I examine the practice of social networking among members

of the AIN, and how this social network of inﬂuencers enables various types of

political radicalization. This can include inﬂuencers radicalizing their audiences, each

other, or being radicalized by their own audience’s engagement. Finally, I conclude

by considering what steps could be taken to temper the harmful political effects of

the AIN. Speciﬁcally, I argue that YouTube should reassess both their monetization

incentive programs and their content moderation practices.

METHODS

To understand the AIN in-depth, I analyzed both the content of YouTube inﬂuencers

(that is, what they are saying) as well as their collaborations (who they are

broadcasting with). The latter presented a signiﬁcant research challenge, as YouTube

does not provide metadata about guest appearances. To get around this, I manually

collected data from each inﬂuencer’s video titles, and at times, video content, to

determine each of the guests they hosted in their content between January 1, 2017

and April 1, 2018. I found new inﬂuencers through a snowball approach: for each

guest on an inﬂuencer’s channel, I would visit their own channel (if one existed) to

see who they, in turn, hosted.

Overall, I collected data for approximately 65 inﬂuencers across 81 channels. (While

there is often a one-to-one relationship between inﬂuencers and channels, this is not

always the case; some inﬂuencers maintain multiple channels, some share channels,

and some only appear as guests on the channels of others). I then gathered channel

subscriptions and video metadata. Subscriber counts ranged from about 10,000 (for

a “pro-white,” gender traditionalist woman who goes by the pseudonym “Wife with a

Purpose”) to about 2.5 million (for former reality television host and current YouTube

talk show host Joe Rogan). I watched content from each of these channels and

performed an in-depth content analysis on the transcripts for two of them. Overall, I

watched hundreds of hours of content from these 65 content creators.

At the time of data collection, this group of inﬂuencers was as close as I could get

to a snapshot of the Alternative Inﬂuence Network. However, the boundaries of this

network are loose and constantly changing. Since the time of my data collection,

newly popular inﬂuencers have begun to collaborate with others in the network,

and some of those I tracked in April have since deleted their channels or removed

their content. The data also does not represent the full extent of networking and

collaboration that occurs between inﬂuencers. Many of them, for example, comment

on each other’s videos; they reference each other’s ideas in their content; and they

interact on platforms like Twitter and Instagram in addition to YouTube. In other

Data & Society Research Institute datasociety.net

words, the data I collected is illustrative, not comprehensive. For more detailed

descriptions of the inﬂuencers discussed in this report, see Appendix A. For a

comprehensive list of the inﬂuencers and channels included in analysis, see

Appendix B.

METHODS

Data & Society Research Institute datasociety.net

THE ALTERNATIVE

INFLUENCE NETWORK

The Alternative Inﬂuence Network is a coherent discursive system despite the

seeming variety and independence of its members. In this section I show how these

ﬁgures are connected by an interlocking series of videos, references, and guest

appearances. Within the AIN, a hodge-podge of internet celebrities claiming a

variety of political positions impart their ideologies to viewers and each other. The

boundaries between different political groups of inﬂuencers and the ideological

positions they promote are often slippery. Many identify themselves primarily

as libertarians or conservatives. Others self-advertise as white nationalists.

Simultaneously, these inﬂuencers often connect with one another across ideological

lines. At times, inﬂuencers collaborate to the point that ideological differences become

impossible to take at face value. For example, self-identiﬁed conservatives may

disavow far-right extremism while also hosting explicit white nationalists on their

channels. Within the AIN, this collaboration generates a cross-promotion of ideas

that forms a broader, intertextual common ground. Many of these YouTubers are less

deﬁned by any single ideology than they are by a “reactionary” position: a general

opposition to feminism, social justice, or left-wing politics.

One primary example of a shared idea that exists across the network is the concept

of the “Social Justice Warrior” (or “SJW”). The term is used by inﬂuencers across

the network, from libertarians to white nationalists. It is strategically ﬂexible: while

it was initially targeted at feminists, it is

often applied to any number of movements

advocating for social justice, including

Black Lives Matter, the LGBTQ movement,

Muslims, and immigrants. In some cases,

inﬂuencers use it to refer to a vague

conglomeration of these movements, or to

progressive ideas more generally (in one

video, the white nationalist vlogger Colin Robertson deﬁnes an “SJW” as an “empty-

headed transmitter of progressive ideology”).

Mapping the connections between inﬂuencers in the AIN results in a complicated

network diagram that demonstrates just how easily an audience member exploring

seemingly mainstream “conservative” content can be exposed to explicit white

Many of these YouTubers are less

deﬁned by any single ideology than

they are by a “reactionary” position:

a general opposition to feminism,

social justice, or left-wing politics.

Data & Society Research Institute datasociety.net

nationalism. To understand the dynamics of exposure requires ﬁrst understanding

how members of this network espouse different views but are still part of a coherent

ideological network.

Among the 80-plus channels I catalogued for this research, I found a highly

connected network of inﬂuencers across numerous ideological positions. The

network includes media pundits with mainstream appeal, such as Jordan Peterson,

a professor of psychology at the University of Toronto with a best-selling self-

help book. It also includes self-identiﬁed white nationalists, such as Richard

Spencer. While Peterson and Spencer have never collaborated directly, they have

both collaborated with the same inﬂuencer, Carl Benjamin. In the introduction, I

described Benjamin’s debate with Spencer on scientiﬁc racism, which took place in

January 2018. In a live streamed video from less than a year before, in April 2017,

Peterson and Benjamin have a friendly conversation in which they promote gender

traditionalism, deny the existence of a gender pay gap, and claim that IQ is the

highest predictor of success.

Figure 1 highlights how tightly connected inﬂuencers in the AIN are. Each link

represents at least one collaboration between two inﬂuencers (in other words, one

or more instances in which one appeared in a video with another). The visualization

showcases the extent to which they create a broader, highly connected, symbiotic

media system.

PART 1_THE ALTERNATIVE INFLUENCE NETWORK

Data & Society Research Institute datasociety.net

PART 1_THE ALTERNATIVE INFLUENCE NETWORK

Fig. 1: A partial representation of the Alternative Inﬂuence Network, connected through guest

appearances on related channels from January 1, 2017 through April 1, 2018.

Black Pigeon Speaks

Candace Owens

Jeff Holiday

JF Gariépy

Jared Taylor

Andrew Klavan

Faith Goldy

Lana Lokteff

Tara McCarthy

Tim Pool

Kraut and Tea

Mike Enoch

Tree of Logic

Bre Faucheux

Mark Collett

Ben Shapiro

No Bullshit

James Allsup

Bunty King

Mundane Matt

Brittany Pettibone

Mouthy Buddha

Michael Knowles

Joe Rogan

Baked Alaska

James Damore

Vee

Styxhexenhammer666

Andy Warski

Computing Forever

Destiny

Nicholas Fuentes

Dennis Prager

James O'Keefe

Blonde in the

Belly of the

Beast

Stefan Molyneux

Gavin McInnes

Mike Cernovich

Jordan Peterson

Wife with a Purpose

Henrik Palmgren

Roaming Millennial

Chris Ray Gun

Colin Robertson

(Millennial Woes)

Coach Red Pill

Mister Metokur

Paul Joseph Watson

Braving Ruin

Dave Rubin

Milo Yiannopoulos

Owen Benjamin

Steven Crowder

Lauren Southern

Tommy Robinson

Richard Spencer

Carl Benjamin

(Sargon of Akkad)

Some Black Guy

Blaire White

Caolan Robertson

That Guy T

GUEST APPEARANCES ON THE NETWORK FROM

JANUARY 1, 2017 THROUGH APRIL 1, 2018

The graph is a partial representation of collaborative connections within the

Alternative Influence Network (AIN)–a network of controversial academics,

media pundits, and internet celebrities who use YouTube to promote a range

of political positions from mainstream versions of libertarianism and

conservatism to overt white nationalism. While collaborations can

sometimes consist of debates and disagreements, they more frequently

indicate social ties, endorsements, and advertisements for other

influencers.

Each line indicates that two connected influencers appeared

in the same Youtube video during the period of January 1,

2017 and April 1, 2018, serving as guests, hosts, or

collaborators. The size of nodes are determined by

the number of other influencers with whom

they connect–demonstrating how much a

given influencer serves as a conduit for

viewers to other influencers in the AIN.

The colors of nodes are determined

by their total connectivity within

the network, or how close the

influencer is to all other

influencers.

Size indicates how much an

influencer is a conduit to other

influencers in the AIN (between-

ness centrality)

Color indicates an influencer's total

connectivity within the network, or

how close the influencer is to all

other influencers (closeness

centrality)

KEY

THE ALTERNATIVE INFLUENCE

NETWORK ON YOUTUBE

Fig. 1

Data & Society Research Institute datasociety.net

Black Pigeon Speaks

Candace Owens

Jeff Holiday

JF Gariépy

Jared Taylor

Andrew Klavan

Faith Goldy

Lana Lokteff

Tara McCarthy

Tim Pool

Kraut and Tea

Mike Enoch

Tree of Logic

Bre Faucheux

Mark Collett

No Bullshit

James Allsup

Bunty King

Mundane Matt

Brittany Pettibone

Mouthy Buddha

Michael Knowles

Joe Rogan

Baked Alaska

James Damore

Vee

Styxhexenhammer666

Andy Warski

Computing Forever

Destiny

Nicholas Fuentes

Dennis Prager

James O'Keefe

Blonde in the

Belly of the Beast

Stefan Molyneux

Gavin McInnes

Mike Cernovich

Jordan Peterson

Wife with a Purpose

Henrik Palmgren

Chris Ray Gun

Coach Red Pill

Mister Metokur

Paul Joseph Watson

Braving Ruin

Milo Yiannopoulos

Owen Benjamin

Steven Crowder

Lauren Southern

Tommy Robinson

Some Black Guy

Blaire White

Caolan Robertson

That Guy T

eaks

on S

eon

geo

eon

geo

Pigeo

ck P

lac

Bla

Pigeo

wen

Owens

wens

Candace O

nda

day

Holid

lid

f H

olid

Hlid

eff

Jef

Gariépy

JF Ga

Taylor

red Tay

Jare

red

Tay

Andrew Klavan

oldy

h Go

ith

h G

na Lokteff

Lana

Carthy

rthy

McC

McCart

ra M

ara M

Tara

Tara M

a M

ra M

ara

Cart

Pool

ool

Poo

Tim P

Poo

Kraut and Tea

Mike Enoch

f Logic

of Lo

Tree of

f Lo

e Faucheux

Bre F

e Fa

rk Collett

Mark

shit

lsh

Bulls

No B

No Bullshit

sup

lls

s Al

mes

sAll

All

s A

sAlls

lls

mes A

Jam

mes A

King

y K

unty

Bun

unt

Mundane Matt

one

ibo

ett

y P

any

itta

ritt

itta

y Pettibo

Buddha

Buddh

Mouthy B

out

wles

el Knowle

Knowl

Knowles

wle

Micha

Mic

Rogan

Joe

ask

las

ask

Alas

d Ala

Ala

Bak

Alas

ore

Dam

mes

Jam

ore

Vee

hammer666

nha

xenh

hexe

Styxhe

xhe

Styx

Sty

Styxh

hex

xhexe

Warski

Andy W

y W

And

Andy

omputin

Forever

stin

tin

iny

tin

sti

s Fuentes

Nicholas

olas

Fuentes

rager

age

Pra

rag

Pra

nis

nnis

nis

Den

efe

Keef

James O'Kee

mes

Kee

e in th

ond

Beast

ast

Beas

the B

y of t

of t

elly

lly

Bel

Belly

y o

eux

neu

lyne

efa

fan

Ste

tef

Stefan

Stef

Ste

Gavin McInnes

n M

ovic

e Cerno

ern

ke Ce

e C

Mike

e Ce

son

ters

n Pet

Pet

rda

Jord

ord

a Purpose

h a

Wife with a

Wife w

Wife

h a

Wife

k Palmgren

rik

Henr

Ray G

s R

Ray Gu

y G

Ray G

Chris

ris R

ris

s Ra

Pill

ed P

ch R

oach Re

hRe

h R

Coa

tokur

toku

tokur

er Met

ster Met

er M

Mis

Watson

ul Joseph W

Paul Jo

ul Jo

uin

ng Ruin

uin

Ruin

raving R

rav

ng R

vin

Bra

ng Ruin

Milo Yiannopoulos

nja

Ben

njam

njami

n B

Owen

owder

owde

Crow

Cro

en C

Cro

row

eve

tev

Ste

ther

the

out

uther

uthe

ren

ure

son

mmy Robins

my R

Tom

Rbi

k G

Bla

e Bla

ome

Som

kGu

Bla

e B

SomeBlackGuy

Whit

e W

Blaire

ire White

ire

ertso

an Robert

an R

Caola

an R

ert

at Guy

at G

hat

Guy T

y T

Ben Shapiro

Roaming Millennial

Colin Robertson

(Millennial Woes)

Dave Rubin

Richard Spencer

Carl Benjamin

(Sargon of Akkad)

AIN NETWORK PATHS

These graphs show examples of collaborative connections between influencers

of differing ideologies and how these collaborations can create pathways to

radicalization.

Network Path 1 illustrates how the "classical liberal" Dave Rubin and

the white nationalist Colin Robertson (Millennial Woes) are only

separated by two degrees, through the anti-feminist Carl Benjamin

(Sargon of Akkad), who has appeared on both of their channels.

Network Path 2 shows how conservative pundit Ben Shapiro

is connected to white nationalist Richard Spencer through

the vlogger and commentator Roaming Millennial; she

has appeared on Shapiro's YouTube show and has

hosted Spencer for an extended interview on

her channel. For more on how these

collaborations can create radicalization

pathways, see Section 4 (page 35).

Focus: Network Path for Dave Rubin,

Sargon of Akkad, and Millennial Woes

To read more about Network

Path 1, see page 12.

Focus: Network Path for Ben Shapiro,

Roaming Millennial, and Richard Spencer

To read more about Network

Path 2, see page 13.

Fig. 1 (detail)

Data & Society Research Institute datasociety.net

PART 1_THE ALTERNATIVE INFLUENCE NETWORK

To understand the importance of links in this graph, consider the role that Dave

Rubin plays. Rubin is a comedian-turned-pundit who hosts a YouTube talk show

called The Rubin Report, which has over 750,000 channel subscribers.

Rubin

describes himself as a “classical liberal,” a variation on a libertarian embrace of small

government and individual liberty. As the host of a number of public intellectuals

and inﬂuencers, Rubin has become a focal point in a community that calls itself the

“Intellectual Dark Web.”

Rubin describes this group not in terms of ideology, but

rather as an “eclectic mix of people” devoted to having “the important and often

dangerous conversations that are completely ignored by the mainstream.” His most

frequent guests are the other self-identiﬁed members of this “Intellectual Dark Web”

group, including the psychology professor Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro, a

conservative media pundit. However, Rubin also hosts a range of inﬂuencers outside

of this subcommunity, including those with more openly extremist views. These

guests include Stefan Molyneux, a talk show host who promotes scientiﬁc racism,

and Lauren Southern, a Canadian citizen journalist who has since been barred

from entering England because of her vehement anti-Islam and anti-immigration

activism.

Rubin has also hosted Carl Benjamin, himself a heavily connected node of the AIN.

Benjamin ﬁrst made content in the early 2010s focused on criticizing feminist game

critics and feminism more broadly. He grew his popularity in 2014 by broadcasting

throughout Gamergate, a movement of coordinated harassment against women

game critics and designers.

Since then, he has continued to grow his following

with more anti-feminist, anti-social justice content; his main channel now has over

800,000 subscribers, and a secondary channel has an additional 250,000. Benjamin

calls himself a “skeptic,” a term originally used to refer to a group of YouTube

atheists. Like Rubin, Benjamin has also embraced the image of a “classical liberal,”

and often discusses his views in terms of social theory. Indeed, it is just as common

for Benjamin to partake in intellectual discussions with popular libertarians and

conservatives as it is for him to live stream himself “shooting the shit” and making fun

of feminists with other gamers.

At the same time, Benjamin frequently collaborates with openly white nationalist

YouTubers. In his video with Spencer, Benjamin was presumably debating against

scientiﬁc racism, a stance he frequently echoes. However, by participating in the

debate, he was building a shared audience—and thus, a symbiotic relationship—

with white nationalists. In fact, Benjamin has become a frequent guest on channels

that host such “debates,” which often function as group entertainment as much as

genuine disagreements.

Furthermore, Benjamin’s collaborations with white nationalists often eschew the

debate format entirely.

He has hosted Jared Taylor, the white nationalist founder

Data & Society Research Institute datasociety.net

of the magazine American Renaissance, and he has appeared on the channel of Colin

Robertson, a white nationalist, “alt-right” vlogger who goes by the pseudonym

Millennial Woes.

In fact, Robertson was one of several inﬂuencers to join in on

Benjamin’s debate with Richard Spencer, arguing in favor of Spencer’s ideas of

scientiﬁc racism. While in that context, they were presumably on opposite sides of

the debate, Benjamin’s multiple guest appearances on Robertson’s channel reveal a

friendly working dynamic between the two.

Benjamin discussed this in one of his

conversations with Robertson, saying that even though he does not embrace white

nationalist ideas, “In many ways, we do have similar objectives. . . . We have the same

enemies, right? I mean, you guys hate the SJWs, I hate the SJWs. I want to see the

complete destruction of social justice. . . . If the alt-right took the place of the SJWs, I

would have a lot less to fear.”

Robertson’s collaborations reﬂect his own complicated views on conservatives and

libertarians. For example, every December he hosts a range of guests in an event

he calls “Millenniyule.” Most of his guests are fellow white nationalist YouTube

inﬂuencers, such as Jared Taylor.

However, he also hosts a number of “classical

liberal” YouTubers such as Carl Benjamin and

libertarian ones such as a vlogger who goes by

That Guy T.

This path, from Rubin through Benjamin

to Robertson and back again, is just one

example of the proximity of inﬂuencers

in the AIN. One could just as easily trace

between the conservative entertainer Steven Crowder and the “pro-white,” anti-

immigration advocates Brittany Pettibone and Martin Sellner, through the talk

show host and scientiﬁc racism proponent Stefan Molyneux (in the latter case,

Molyneux was interviewing the couple about getting barred from entering the

United Kingdom; they were attempting to enter the country in part to interview

Carl Benjamin and the anti-Islam advocate Tommy Robinson).

Or from the

conservative pundits Ben Shapiro and Michael Knowles, hosts on The Daily

Wire, to Richard Spencer, through the vlogger known as Roaming Millennial.

By connecting to and interacting with one another through YouTube videos,

inﬂuencers with mainstream audiences lend their credibility to openly white

nationalist and other extremist content creators. This is both driven by, and results

in, a shared set of ideas, which in turn helps create the potential for radicalization—

an idea I explore in more depth later in this report.

It is not only these guest appearances and viewpoints, however, that knit together

the AIN. They also collectively partake in certain participatory media practices.

As I will show throughout the rest of this report, the inﬂuencers all draw from a

By connecting to and interacting with one

another through YouTube videos, inﬂuencers

with mainstream audiences lend their

credibility to openly white nationalist

and other extremist content creators.

PART 1_THE ALTERNATIVE INFLUENCE NETWORK

Data & Society Research Institute datasociety.net

larger playbook of alternative media practices and inﬂuence-growing techniques.

To fully understand the role and the power of this network, it is necessary to

understand the strategies of alternative media outlets and the practices of building

inﬂuence online.

PART 1_THE ALTERNATIVE INFLUENCE NETWORK

Data & Society Research Institute datasociety.net

BUILDING AN

ALTERNATIVE MEDIA

Across the AIN, inﬂuencers express a distrust of the “mainstream” news media and a

desire to use YouTube to create a better, alternative media system. In some cases, they

refer to themselves collectively as the “alternative media.” This positioning may seem

counterintuitive, as much of their content—from educational videos to livestreamed

“hangouts” to personal vlogs—bears little resemblance to the traditional format of

news media. However, according to a 2017 study of youth views of news, young

people’s “concept of what constitutes ‘the news’ is amorphous and often extends well

beyond the content produced by traditional journalistic institutions.”

This ﬁnding

accurately represents the more ﬂexible deﬁnition of “news” employed by those in the

AIN to describe their varied political content.

For the inﬂuencers in the AIN, distrust of the mainstream media often turns to

outright rejection and hostility. Various inﬂuencers decry what they feel is a liberal,

progressive, or SJW bias in the mainstream. Others point to cases of journalistic failure

and the economic challenges faced by media in digital environments. Some employ

antiestablishment reasoning to reject the corporate logics driving many mainstream

outlets. By creating an alternative media system on YouTube, inﬂuencers in the

AIN express a wish not only to provide an additional, alternative option for young

audiences, but also to replace their consumption of mainstream news entirely.

To do so, they can capitalize on the broader distrust of news media in the American

population. Indeed, among American audiences, only 14% of Republicans have

“a great deal” or “a fair amount” of trust in the mass media to “report the news

fully, accurately, and fairly.”

The 2017

study on youth views on the news found

that teens express “widespread skepticism”

about news media and “assume that much

of the information they encounter may be

inaccurate or biased.”

Based on this distrust,

disillusioned news consumers are turning

to alternative sources. In an extensive study

on the online news-sharing ecosystem in the

lead-up to the 2016 US presidential election, researchers found that conservatives

were opting out of media sources traditionally considered “mainstream,” such as

By creating an alternative media system

on YouTube, inﬂuencers in the AIN express

a wish not only to provide an additional,

alternative option for young audiences,

but also to replace their consumption

of mainstream news entirely.

Data & Society Research Institute datasociety.net

ALTERNATIVE CREDIBILITY

The New York Times, and were instead sharing news from a range of hyper-partisan

websites such as Breitbart News.

The following sections outline two key ways the inﬂuencers in the AIN differentiate

themselves from mainstream news as a way to appeal to young, disillusioned media

consumers. The ﬁrst way is by rejecting traditional news media norms for building

credibility and trust in favor of the norms of participatory culture. These inﬂuencers

explicitly reject the trappings of institutional prestige, adherence to objectivity

and neutrality, and the enforcement of gatekeeping mechanisms that dominate

mainstream news media. Instead, they build trust with their audiences by stressing

their relatability, their authenticity, and their accountability to those audiences.

The second way is by providing a speciﬁc social identity for themselves and their

audiences. Speciﬁcally, they provide a likeminded community for those who feel like

social underdogs for their rejection of progressive values, and they provide a sense of

countercultural rebellion for those same audiences.

With these approaches, the inﬂuencers of the AIN draw inspiration, approaches, and

tactics from alternative media systems of the past, and from the participatory practices

of social media platforms of today. The underground press of the New Left in the

1960s, for example, pioneered a journalistic approach that focused on storytelling

and authenticity rather than objectivity.

More recently, YouTube has broadly

positioned itself as a counterpoint to mainstream broadcasters and entertainment

juggernauts by highlighting the ability for individuals to broadcast on the platform.

This attitude often serves “in stark contrast to the production, content, and marketing

strategies of traditional media industries.”

The AIN inﬂuencers also draw from the

practices of news outlets like Fox News, which has for many years cultivated an

oppositional social identity against the “cultural elites” of liberal media, even as it

remains the most popular cable news outlet.

ALTERNATIVE CREDIBILITY

Many inﬂuencers in the AIN discuss their channels as new kinds of “experiments”

in relaying information in more meaningful and accurate ways than legacy media.

Speciﬁcally, this means they largely reject traditional modes of news media credibility,

such as institutional reputation and the ideal of objectivity. Instead, they build

trust with their audiences through participatory media practices. These techniques

are highly effective: social ties play a larger role in media trust than the reputation

of a speciﬁc media source, and when people see a news post from someone they

personally trust, they are more likely to recommend it to friends, follow it, or

A recent study on youth news consumers also

found that they trust “user-generated” content more than legacy media sources.

While political inﬂuencers adopt a range of strategies, they stress three qualities in

Data & Society Research Institute datasociety.net

particular that differentiate them from mainstream media: relatability, authenticity,

and accountability.

Relatability

Legacy media “draws on the long-standing familiarity and reputation of their brand”

as a source of trust.

Outlets such as The New York Times and The Washington Post

have built credibility and trust over the course of decades. However, it is precisely

this institutional prestige that media creators of the AIN see as a problem. For

example, YouTuber and independent journalist Tim Pool argues that a media outlet’s

institutional reputation can actually act as a cover for bad journalism. “What ends up

happening,” Pool explains in one video, “is that being behind a brand gets people off

the hook for the things they do. A journalist could write something bad, but people

see Washington Post, they don’t see the individual. And if The Washington Post doesn’t

issue a correction then these individuals [readers] will leave with bad information and

believing some fake story.”

In an earlier video, Pool argued that now, “It’s about more

of a personal level of trust.”

Rather than stressing institutional credibility, political inﬂuencers highlight how

relatable and accessible they are to their audiences.

Indeed, as social media

scholar Brooke Erin Duffy describes: across communities on YouTube, inﬂuencers

often highlight their relatability and disavow “traditional markers of status by

casting themselves as people just like us.”

Political inﬂuencers treat it as a point

of pride to not be afﬁliated with larger,

legacy news institutions. In fact, some

inﬂuencers, including Pool, openly discuss

their departures from media and academic

institutions to highlight their outsider status as a source of credibility (Pool previously

worked at Vice Media and Fusion TV before striking out on his own).

These narratives, while compelling, often obscure the skills, capital, and networking

opportunities these inﬂuencers gained from previous institutional afﬁliations.

And many political inﬂuencers still maintain institutional afﬁliations to academic

institutions, think tanks, and media outlets. However, by broadcasting as individuals

on the platform, their connections to these institutions are often obscured.

This is the case, for example, with Dave Rubin, the talk show host who gives a

platform to many libertarian academics and anti-SJW YouTubers. Rubin has a

particular claim to individuality, having publicly showcased his departure from the

left-leaning alternative outlet The Young Turks. Because he frames his political views

in terms of his personal ideological journey and his increased media independence,

RELATABILITY

Rather than stressing institutional credibility,

political inﬂuencers highlight how relatable

and accessible they are to their audiences.

Data & Society Research Institute datasociety.net

AUTHENTICITY

Rubin is able to present his ideas as new and, in some cases, even revolutionary.

However, this framing obscures his partnership with a well-funded, highly inﬂuential

libertarian organization, which provides him with many of the speakers who appear

on his show. In 2016, he established a partnership with Learn Liberty, an initiative

housed in the Institute for Humane Studies (IHS) at George Mason University.

The

IHS is heavily funded by the billionaire Koch family and is chaired by Charles Koch;

its speciﬁc aim is to “cultivate and subsidize a farm team of the next generation’s

libertarian scholars.”

Thus, Rubin is able to position himself as a “freethinker” and

an “outsider” even as he is promoted by a well-funded organization with the explicit

aim of promoting libertarian ideals on behalf of wealthy donors.

Authenticity

In addition to institutional credibility, legacy news media outlets have traditionally

built trust through their adherence to the norms of objectivity and their devotion to

fact-checking.

The political inﬂuencers of the AIN, on the other hand, generally

make no such claims. Instead, they criticize the very concept of objectivity, as well

as the mainstream media’s claims that they adhere to it. Citizen journalist Lauren

Southern has claimed, “I would never pretend to be objective like you see CNN do

and Fox News do.” Instead she calls her approach “gonzo” and says she attempts to

convey a “Hunter S. Thompson kind of thing.”

Dave Rubin cites the incorrect media

predictions for the 2016 presidential election as evidence that mainstream institutions

“mask their opinions as facts.”

Inﬂuencers in the AIN instead adopt the strategies of microcelebrities—particularly

the cultivation of authenticity through transparency and responsiveness. For example,

microcelebrities commonly use the intimate

genre of “vlogging.”

Emerging from webcam

culture and personal blogging, vlogs adhere to

very different tropes than those of traditional

news outlets. They are often highly personal,

told through subjective storytelling and

affective cues, and take place over long

periods of time. The very setting of vlogging – traditionally ﬁlmed in bedrooms, at

kitchen tables, or in living rooms – makes the videos highly personal.

By adopting the practices of genres like vlogging, political inﬂuencers are able to

cultivate a sense of transparency that is often lacking from mainstream news outlets.

For example, they frequently reveal elements of the “backstage” or behind-the-scenes

processes at work to their audiences.

In one video, conservative vlogger Blaire White

starts by telling her audience, “Hey, guys. So if I look different, it’s because I have

different lighting, and it’s supposed to be like beauty lighting, but I feel like I just look

By adopting the practices of genres like

vlogging, political inﬂuencers are able to

cultivate a sense of transparency that is

often lacking from mainstream news outlets.

Data & Society Research Institute datasociety.net

ACCOUNTABILITY

so pale.”

Tim Pool often includes segments that feature him buying the electronic

recording equipment that he plans on using to ﬁlm future events (he also ﬁlms daily

vlog episodes in his living room and hosts a weekly group podcast around his dining

room table).

Detached from the cable news cycle, the content on YouTube also takes on a different

temporal rhythm from the mainstream news. As media scholars have noted for

decades, the television format often encourages shortened, simpliﬁed “sound bites”

that obscure the nuances of topics in the news.

In contrast, citizen journalists may

attend an event and livestream it in its entirety over the course of several hours.

Political conversations can last many hours as well, resulting in extremely in-depth

discussions of political theory and abstract ideology (this was the case with the debate

between Richard Spencer and Carl Benjamin, which lasted over four hours).

As social media scholars have noted, the very idea of cultivating authenticity is itself a

contradiction.

Authenticity has become such an effective way of building inﬂuence

that powerful media institutions, both progressive and conservative, have begun to

take notice. Recently, it has become a key topic at conservative media conferences like

RightOnline (also funded by the Koch brothers). The goal of the event is to teach a

new generation of media makers how to build inﬂuence and spread conservatism.

Attendees can ﬁnd presentations and panels speciﬁcally on the topics of “being

authentic” and “being likable,” as well as “establishing a clear media persona and

story about oneself.”

In this way, the trappings of authenticity can be cultivated and

exploited by institutional power, even as political inﬂuencers use them to promise

freedom from that same power.

Accountability

The AIN engages directly with its audiences in a way that traditional news outlets do

not—through comments and social media posts, but also directly in video content.

Traditionally, legacy media outlets have used gatekeeping mechanisms and a level

of distance from their audiences as a way to establish expertise and authority. In

contrast, many political inﬂuencers explicitly court feedback in order to build trust

and rapport with their audience. Audience feedback is directly built into YouTube’s

interface: audiences react to content in the form of likes, dislikes, comments, and

channel subscriptions.

In keeping with vlogging genre norms, many inﬂuencers speak directly to their

audiences and ask them for their opinions and feedback in the comments section of

their videos. A common genre among the inﬂuencers is the “Q&A” video, in which

hosts answer viewers’ questions.

In some cases, they recruit their audience’s help in

covering issues. At the end of a video criticizing the mainstream media, Blaire White

Data & Society Research Institute datasociety.net

ALTERNATIVE SOCIAL IDENTITY

told her audience to “make sure you comment below with some other examples of

mainstream media news outlets lying.”

In another case, White asked her viewers to

help keep her on schedule making videos. “In 2018, I’ll be uploading once a week

if not more. . . . If I mess up, scream at me, harass me, bombard me with comments

and messages and make me feel terrible about it.”

Ultimately, political inﬂuencers acknowledge their audiences as an important part of

their media community on YouTube, and they stress the importance of the audience’s

role in promoting their goals. Dave Rubin invoked this to his audience at the end of

one video about the so-called “Intellectual Dark Web”: “You, watching this right now,

are actually part of this Intellectual Dark Web. If you engage with these ideas, and

you’re trying to ﬁgure out what the hell is going on, then you are as much part of this

thing as I am.”

He then asked his audience to tweet and post about these same ideas,

to continue to promote his channel and his political causes.

ALTERNATIVE SOCIAL IDENTITY

The political inﬂuencers of the AIN use the media they create to establish a type of

alternative media community among their audiences. These content creators use

collaborations with other inﬂuencers and responses to audience feedback to cultivate

a sense of loyalty. In fact, media scholars have argued that information consumption

is less about factually correct or incorrect information than it is about rallying around

a collective social identity. Media scholar Daniel Kreiss, for example, argues that

Fox News and Breitbart News have been so successful in part because they provide

a metaphorical “family” to those who reject mainstream news.

This is powerful

from a political perspective because a family provides “a sense of identity, place, and

belonging; emotional, social, and cultural support and security; and gives rise to

political and social afﬁliations and beliefs.”

For contemporary news outlets, identity signaling can act as both a means of creating

strong viewer ties and a way of staking out their territory in a saturated attention

economy. Media scholar Reece Peck has documented this in the case of Fox News,

which uses “cultural referents,” like references to country music stars, to evoke a

speciﬁc class-based and racialized identity (speciﬁcally white, working class, and

male).

Peck calls this approach “cultural populism” and argues that Fox uses it to

rally their audiences in opposition to their competition, whom they brand as out-of-

touch, coastal “elites.”

The political inﬂuencers of the AIN also promote a social identity that helps them

build inﬂuence and attract audiences. Speciﬁcally, they signify an identity of both

social underdogs and a hip counterculture—courting young audiences looking for a

community with a level of rebellion.

Data & Society Research Institute datasociety.net

SOCIAL UNDERDOGS

Social Underdogs

The political inﬂuencers of the AIN consistently project the idea that nonprogressives

are “persecuted against” because of their beliefs. Sociologist Francesca Tripodi

observed this trend among conservative Christian news consumers, writing that while

none of the participants had personally been harassed or targeted for their beliefs,

they were collectively “galvanized by the overarching notion that the intolerant ‘Left’

was silencing conservative expression.”

One popular trope among conservative-identifying members of the AIN is the

embarrassment or shaming that comes along with admitting one’s political views

publicly. Conservative YouTube vlogger Candace Owens, who uses the pseudonym

Red Pill Black, launched her YouTube career with a facetious video about telling

her parents she’s conservative (Fig. 2). In the video, titled, “Mom, Dad….I’m a

Conservative,” Owens acts out two sketches about “coming out” in 2017.

In the

ﬁrst, she comes out to her parents as gay and is greeted with love and support; in

the second, she “comes out” to her parents as conservative and is met with judgment

and concern.

Fig. 2: YouTube vlogger Candace Owens comes out to her parents that she’s conservative.

Data & Society Research Institute datasociety.net

COUNTERCULTURAL APPEAL

A similar sentiment has been circulated by James Damore, the Google engineer who

was ﬁred in July 2017 after sharing a memo promoting biologically determinist

misogyny as an explanation for gender disparities within the company.

Both as

part of the memo and in subsequent media appearances, Damore has expressed

concern that he was being discriminated against at Google for being conservative; he

claimed Silicon Valley is an “ideological echo chamber” that needs more “ideological

diversity.”

While many in the AIN criticize and mock progressive social movements

for what they see as a “victim mentality,” they also simultaneously position themselves

as the genuine victims in society.

Some political inﬂuencers have tied this “social underdog” position to the idea

that YouTube is attempting to “de-platform” them—in other words, kick them

off the platform. In early 2018, YouTube changed its monetization policies as a

way to prevent “spammers, impersonators, and other bad actors” from exploiting

the system.

The changes were described as a reaction against a series of videos

targeted at children that imparted highly disturbing content. However, these policies

have also affected several political inﬂuencers platforming the AIN. Many of them

have expressed anxieties about their ability to continue making a living off of

videos. These inﬂuencers are far from the only content creators affected (those in

LGBTQ communities, for example, have also experienced challenges).

However,

demonetization continues to fuel their speciﬁc narrative that major institutions –

including technology platforms – have a

liberal bias.

The “social underdog” may be appealing to

some, but it also erases a number of systemic

power differentials in society and connects to

even more extremist ideas. For example, the

position of “social underdog” is also reﬂected in white nationalist and supremacist

discourse. These groups often describe themselves as victims of racial, gender,

and class oppression posed by the gendered, sexualized, and racialized “other”—

speciﬁcally, women, LGBTQ, African Americans, and Jews.

The nature of this

connection is discussed in more detail later in this report.

Countercultural Appeal

Many of the political inﬂuencers of the AIN attempt to appeal to young, tech-savvy

audiences. To do so, they purposefully craft a shared identity based on hipness and

edginess, and they signify a countercultural identity that largely draws from youth

movements of the past. An editor of the conspiracy theory media outlet Infowars, Paul

Joseph Watson, made a video explicitly stating these appeals, called “Conservatism

is the New Counter-Culture.” In the video, he draws comparisons to the New Left

...they purposefully craft a shared identity

based on hipness and edginess, and they

signify a countercultural identity that largely

draws from youth movements of the past.

Data & Society Research Institute datasociety.net

countercultural activists of the 1960s and the punk rock scene of the 1980s (Fig. 3).

While the members of the AIN espouse drastically different political views than either

of the countercultures they draw from, they use their avowed populism to align with

the antiestablishment sentiment of both past movements.

Richard Spencer strategically capitalized on this countercultural positioning when

he promoted the “alt-right” throughout the 2016 election, describing the movement

as “edgy and dangerous, it’s cool and hip. It’s that thing our parents don’t want us

to do.”

This positioning has also been used explicitly to excuse the seriousness of

the racism and sexism associated with “alt-right” positions like Spencer’s. Notorious

provocateur Milo Yiannopolous and his co-author Allum Bokhari wrote an article

about the “alt-right” claiming that those who identiﬁed with the term were no more

bigots than “death metal devotees in the 80s were actually Satanists. Just as the kids

of the 60s shocked their parents with promiscuity, long hair and rock’n’roll, so too do

the alt-right’s young meme brigades shock older generations.”

Political inﬂuencers in the AIN have also built on their opposition to “PC culture”

and the “language police” by co-opting one of the fundamental political causes

of the New Left in the 1960s: the Free Speech Movement. The original Free

Speech Movement was a long-term student protest that took place at University

of California, Berkeley throughout 1964 and 1965. Now, many of the political

inﬂuencers in the AIN call “political correctness” a “suppression of free speech” and

claim that policies implemented by social platforms and colleges alike are a threat

to the First Amendment.

There are genuine conversations to be had about free speech online and on college

campuses, and legal scholars have argued that we need to reassess our understandings

Fig. 3: Paul Joseph Watson video from February 2017.

COUNTERCULTURAL APPEAL

Data & Society Research Institute datasociety.net

COUNTERCULTURAL APPEAL

of the First Amendment in the contemporary information environment.

However,

the positioning of those in the AIN as defenders of free speech is laden with

contradictions. Inﬂuencers in the AIN often bully and make fun of other inﬂuencers

they disagree with and sometimes encourage their viewers to do the same.

Because

they sit at the intersection of ideological disagreements and personal conﬂict, the

inﬂuencers can often criticize social justice by targeting individuals and treating them

as proxies for progressive ideology. They can then trivialize this approach by referring

to it as “drama” or political debate.

Indeed, the entire countercultural positioning is misleading: these inﬂuencers

are adopting identity signals afﬁliated with previous countercultures, but the

actual content of their arguments seeks to reinforce dominant cultural racial and

gendered hierarchies. Their reactionary politics and connections to traditional

modes of power show that what they are most often ﬁghting for is actually the

status quo—a return to traditional gender and racial norms, or a belief in the

individual over an understanding of group oppression. In this way, they can

paradoxically align hyper-traditional ideals with the rebellious positioning of past

countercultural movements.

Data & Society Research Institute datasociety.net

Content creators of the Alternative Inﬂuence Network use the techniques of online

inﬂuencer culture not only to gain trust with their audiences but also explicitly

to promote reactionary ideology. This reﬂects the larger phenomenon of online

inﬂuencer marketing: microcelebrities on social media develop highly intimate

relationships with their followers before inserting advertisements and marketing

items into their content. As outlined in the introduction, the inﬂuencers in the AIN

adopt the techniques of inﬂuencer marketing, but instead of selling products or

services to their audiences, they sell political ideology (hence my use of the term

“political inﬂuencers”).

These strategies reveal a tension underlying the content produced by these

inﬂuencers: while they present themselves as news sources, their content strategies

often more accurately consist of marketing and advertising approaches. These

approaches are meant to provoke feelings, memories, emotions, and social ties. In

this way, the “accuracy” of their messaging

can be difﬁcult to assess through traditional

journalistic tactics like fact-checking.

The following sections outline some of

the major techniques political inﬂuencers

adopt from inﬂuencer marketing to promote

reactionary ideologies to their followers. Speciﬁcally, they recount ideological

testimonials that frame ideology in terms of personal growth and self-betterment.

They engage in self-branding techniques that present traditional, white, male-

dominated values as desirable and aspirational. They employ search engine

optimization (SEO) to highly rank their content against politically charged keywords.

And they strategically use controversy to gain attention and frame political ideas as

fun entertainment.

IDEOLOGICAL TESTIMONIALS

Many political inﬂuencers of the AIN frame political issues in terms of personal

stories. These stories operate as ideological testimonials akin to product testimonials

in advertising. One popular testimonial trope among right-wing political inﬂuencers

is the transformation from “leftist” to a member of the political right. Many of these

PROMOTING IDEOLOGY THROUGH

INFLUENCER MARKETING

...the inﬂuencers in the AIN adopt the

techniques of inﬂuencer marketing, but

instead of selling products or services to

their audiences, they sell political ideology

Data & Society Research Institute datasociety.net

parables center on speciﬁc moments of change, often phrased as “awakenings” in

which inﬂuencers were confronted with the “fallacies” of “the left” and saw a better

path forward.

This is how Dave Rubin describes his own political transformation. He frequently

discusses a political awakening he had in 2014, after watching an episode of The Bill

Maher Show featuring the philosopher and “Horseman of Atheism” Sam Harris.

his appearance on the show, Sam Harris got into an argument with fellow panelist

and guest Ben Afﬂeck about contemporary Islam. In the clip, Harris criticizes modern

liberalism for its unwillingness to condemn aspects of Islam. After Afﬂeck calls these

comments “gross” and “racist,” Harris responds that “we have to be able to criticize

bad ideas” and that “Islam at this moment is the motherload of bad ideas.”

Rubin

claims that after the episode was aired, the onus was put on Harris and Maher to

prove that they weren’t bigoted, and he says the event illustrated “lazy thinking” on

the part of progressives. The incident led to Rubin’s falling out with The Young Turks,

after which he began producing content independently and moved more and more

toward libertarianism.

These testimonials frequently, perhaps counterintuitively, come from inﬂuencers who

are women, people of color, and/or members of LGBTQ community. In these cases,

the inﬂuencers often reframe progressive issues of social justice into conservative

narratives of individual self-betterment. These testimonials fundamentally deny

systemic oppression of vulnerable populations by positioning oppression and victimhood

as a choice that can be overcome.

This is the case with the conservative, anti-SJW inﬂuencer Blaire White. White is an

out trans woman whose videos often consist of her making humorous and snarky

responses to feminist and social justice content. White differentiates her personal

experiences as a trans woman from what she sees as the “victim mentality” of the

groups she derogatorily calls “SJWs.” In contrast, she positions her own coming out

and transitioning experiences in terms of the conservative ideals of individualism and

personal betterment. She even says that before her transition, she was herself an SJW

and adopted the victim mentality, but that through her personal experiences, she was

able to take control of her life and eschew that “toxic” approach: “If there was ever

a point where I was prone to being a stereotypical trans victim and just perpetually

offended,” she said in one video, “it died off when I started taking my life into my

own hands and realizing that I am capable of overcoming things.”

In this sense,

she positions her coming out as the moment of awakening in which she gave up the

“victim mentality” of “the left.”

Inﬂuencer Antonia Okafor used a similar strategy when she appeared in a video for

conservative media nonproﬁt Prager University (known colloquially as PragerU). In

IDEOLOGICAL TESTIMONIALS

Data & Society Research Institute datasociety.net

the video titled “Black, Millennial, Female and…Conservative,”

Okafor talks about

how she used to be an Obama-supporting Democrat before she “decided to start

asking questions.” She reframes her conservative belief in individual responsibility

under the guise of “female empowerment,” by saying, “I decided that the very

deﬁnition of empowerment required me to take responsibility for my own life. I

wasn’t going to be anyone’s victim.” She argues that she started voting Republican

because it is the party that views her “as an empowered individual, able to shape

my own destiny, not as a member of a victim group.” Overall, as with any effective

testimonial, she claims the transformation has made her a happier and more fulﬁlled

person: “The more questions I asked, the less popular I became. But here’s the funny

thing. I started feeling better about myself.”

The ideological testimonial is also popular among more extremist inﬂuencers. Among

these YouTubers, many refer to the process of abandoning older, progressive politics

as “taking the red pill.” This was the case, for example, for the YouTuber who goes

by the pseudonym Blonde in the Belly of the Beast, who posted a video called “My

Red Pill Journey.” In her case, she began getting “redpilled” because she felt the black

students at her high school “self-segregated” and had different “demeanors” than the

white students. These included, as she describes, more dropouts, teen pregnancies,

and physical ﬁghting—three tropes that are common among white supremacist

IDEOLOGICAL TESTIMONIALS

Fig. 4: YouTuber who goes by “Blonde in the Belly of the Beast” uses personal stories to frame her

political ideology in terms of personal growth and self-betterment.

Data & Society Research Institute datasociety.net

POLITICAL SELF-BRANDING

depictions of black people.

She then discusses going to university and reading

Western classics, which led her to develop a “deep, lasting reverence and loyalty to

Western civilization” and “a sense of pride for being descended of Western people.”

As with the conservative testimonials, Blonde describes how her “redpilling” made

her life better; she says she became better educated, ate well, exercised, and took care

of herself. This includes acting “more feminine” and smoothing out relationship issues

she had because she was previously “too dominant.”

These personalized stories are particularly powerful when they come from inﬂuencers

who have built affective relationships with their audiences. Often told through highly

detailed and personal narratives, these testimonials cannot be fact-checked because

they speak to “lived experiences.” At the same time, they support larger narratives of

racism, sexism, and other forms of bigotry.

POLITICAL SELF-BRANDING

“Self-branding” is an extremely important part of inﬂuencer culture. It refers to

a conscious impression management strategy that deploys “cultural meanings

and images drawn from . . . the mainstream culture industries.”

By creating a

“publicizable personality,” inﬂuencers are better able to appeal to a market of

potential viewers.

Just as with advertising

more broadly, there are politics inherent in

self-branding: in order to build followings,

inﬂuencers across industries and platforms

often appeal to tropes that reinforce

traditional gender and racial roles. For

political inﬂuencers of the AIN, the political

ideals implicitly embedded in advertising

become explicit. Blending the “glamour” of

celebrity with the intimacy of inﬂuencer culture, they broadcast gender traditionalism

and performed “whiteness.” In this way, inﬂuencers display the way they live their

politics as an aspirational brand.

For example, white nationalist women inﬂuencers often use self-branding strategies

to highlight traditional, white notions of femininity. These inﬂuencers call themselves

“trad” wives (with “trad” acting as a shorthand for “traditionalist”). “Trad” women

create content about the ideals of staying at home, supporting their husbands, and

raising children. One example is the inﬂuencer Ayla Stewart, who runs a channel

called Wife with a Purpose. In her channel description, she writes: “Ayla, is a stay-

at-home, homeschooling, home birthing, mother of six children . . . #TradLife

#WhiteCulture.”

Blending the “glamour” of celebrity

with the intimacy of inﬂuencer culture,

they broadcast gender traditionalism

and performed “whiteness.” In this way,

inﬂuencers display the way they live

their politics as an aspirational brand.

Data & Society Research Institute datasociety.net

POLITICAL SELF-BRANDING

Meanwhile, some male political inﬂuencers brand themselves as hypermasculine. The

Golden One, for example, is a unique blend of men’s rights activist, white nationalist,

self-help guru, and fantasy enthusiast (Fig. 5). He fashions his politics around hyper-

traditional gender roles, commitment to physical ﬁtness and martial arts, and a self-

aggrandizing mythology drawn in part from The Lord of the Rings and the tabletop

miniature wargame Warhammer 40,000. In addition to political commentary, he

posts advice on eating and ﬁtness. The Golden One is heavily inﬂuenced by a “live

your life like an RPG” (short for “role-playing game”) mentality, a sentiment that has

grown in some gaming communities since the release of popular digital RPG Skyrim

in 2011. His branding not only reﬂects hyper-traditional gender roles and archetypes

from Nordic mythology; it also taps into the self-branding strategies that appeal to

gaming and bodybuilding communities.

AIN inﬂuencers also extend their personal brands beyond the conﬁnes of YouTube,

often maintaining proﬁles on multiple platforms, including Instagram, Twitter, and

Discord. In these cases, they adapt their personal branding strategies. For example,

on Instagram, a number of political inﬂuencers in the AIN “emulate the tropes and

symbols of traditional celebrity culture, such as glamorous self-portraits.”

Martin

Sellner and Brittany Pettibone – a “pro-white,” anti-immigration “celebrity couple”

– use Instagram and YouTube to showcase their relationship as the embodiment of

“trad” relationships and gender performances (Fig. 6). While Pettibone and Sellner

may appear like many other good-looking young people posting ﬂattering images

on Instagram, on YouTube they openly advocate a total end to immigration.

emulating techniques used by mainstream celebrities and fashion bloggers on

Fig. 5: The Golden One showcases his muscular body alongside superimposed Western

mythological ﬁgures.

Data & Society Research Institute datasociety.net

Instagram, they minimize the signiﬁcance of their racist views.

SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION

By promoting testimonials and partaking in self-branding, political inﬂuencers are

able to use the visual and narrative capabilities of digital media. Political inﬂuencers

are also able to strategically use politicized keywords for marketing purposes.

Speciﬁcally, the inﬂuencers in the AIN try to get their content highly ranked in search

results. Businesses have devoted signiﬁcant marketing resources toward this process,

calling it search engine optimization (SEO). Some political inﬂuencers in the AIN

use SEO strategies to exploit “data voids,” or search terms that lack robust results.

In this way, they use SEO to “hijack” certain issues and provide speciﬁc messages to

potential new audiences.

In a 2018 study of YouTube’s search algorithm, researchers Bernhard Rieder, Ariadna

Matamoros-Fernández, and Òscar Coromina document how this phenomenon looks

in practice.

For automated searches conducted over the course of the summer of

2016, they found that the query “Gamergate” consistently brought back content

from ﬁgures who supported the event and its harassment campaigns, such as Milo

Yiannopoulos and Carl Benjamin. They also found that the term “refugees” brought

back content speciﬁcally from anti-Islamic immigration YouTube inﬂuencers,

including Black Pigeon Speaks and the outlet Rebel Media.

When I made the same

searches in the spring and summer of 2018, I found that very little had changed since

the time of the previous study; inﬂuencers of the AIN had highly ranked results for

both search terms (see Fig. 7).

THE SEARCH ENGINE OPTIMIZATION

Fig. 6: YouTubers Martin Sellner and Brittany Pettibone use

the self-presentation strategies common among Instagram inﬂuencers.

Data & Society Research Institute datasociety.net

STRATEGIC CONTROVERSY

In my searches, I also found that

inﬂuencers are explicitly using

terminology afﬁliated with progressive

social justice movements and are

therefore appearing in search results

for those terms. A number of popular

videos from conservative inﬂuencers

use the terms “social justice,” “liberal,”

and “leftist” in their videos titles,

as well as more speciﬁc terms like

“intersectionality.” Currently, a YouTube

search for any of those terms will bring

back content from conservative and

libertarian political inﬂuencers within

the top 10 YouTube search results. The

search results for “social justice,” for

example, include a video from PragerU

entitled “What is Social Justice?” hosted

by Jonah Goldberg, a fellow at the

American Enterprise Institute.

In the

video, he echoes libertarian critiques

of social justice in the format of an

educational video (Fig. 8). Other results

include a video from the libertarian

YouTube channel ReasonTV titled

“Stossel: Jordan Peterson vs. ‘Social

Justice Warriors’” and a video from anti-

SJW inﬂuencer Roaming Millennial titled

“Why Social Justice is CANCER.” In fact,

all of the top 10 video results for “social

justice” are criticisms of social justice

from reactionary channels (Fig. 9).

STRATEGIC CONTROVERSY

As with established news outlets, political inﬂuencers are competing in an “attention

economy” in which “the most valued content is that which is most likely to attract

attention.”

As a result, many inﬂuencers seek to gain attention by capitalizing on

controversy. For example, Jordan Peterson, a professor of psychology at the University

of Toronto, has strategically relayed a moment of controversy into high levels of

inﬂuence (as well as monetary reward). In 2016, Peterson was at the center of a

controversy because of his outspoken opposition to Canada’s proposed Bill C-16,

Fig. 7: The top results for a search of “Gamergate” made in

incognito mode on July 12, 2018 include many perpetrators

of harassment and conspiracy theories, including

mundanematt, Sargon of Akkad, Milo Yiannopolous, and

Internet Aristocrat.

Data & Society Research Institute datasociety.net

STRATEGIC CONTROVERSY

which sought to add gender expression and gender identity as protected identities

under the Canadian Human Rights Act. Peterson claimed it would force him to use

certain gender pronouns and would thus infringe on his freedom of speech. (Others

have said his claims fundamentally misrepresent the nature of the bill.)

By strategically taking a

public stance on a hot-

button issue, Peterson was

able to use the backlash to

his advantage on YouTube,

where his channel now

has over one million

subscribers. Peterson

identiﬁed this strategy

when, in an interview, he

said that he had “ﬁgured

out how to monetize social

justice warriors.”

another video, he makes a

similar claim, saying that

his audiences “came for the

scandal and stayed for the

content.”

Others generate controversy

directly within their

content through ﬁlmed

counterprotests, which

borrow from the genre of

YouTube stunt videos. One

prominent example is the

far-right citizen journalist

and activist Lauren

Southern. In one instance,

Southern crashed an anti-

rape activist event called

SlutWalk with a poster

that read “There Is No

Rape Culture in the West.”

(Fig. 10).

More recently,

Southern’s demonstrations

have become increasingly

Fig. 9: YouTube search results for “social justice” (Google Chrome,

Incognito in the US, June 19, 2018).

Fig. 8: A screenshot from a PragerU video criticizing social justice; the video

appeared as the ﬁrst result on YouTube for the search term “social justice” (Google

Chrome, Incognito in the US, June 19, 2018).

Data & Society Research Institute datasociety.net

focused on her anti-immigration, anti-Islam stances. In 2017, Southern ﬁlmed

her participation in an anti-immigrant action alongside a group far-right European

activists (including Martin Sellner). The group boarded a boat, set off ﬂares,

and held up an anti-refuge banner while attempting to hinder a ship rescuing

stranded refugees.

Some political inﬂuencers generate controversy by broadcasting debates between

other inﬂuencers. In early 2018, an entire debate-focused genre emerged on YouTube

called “Internet Bloodsports.” Many of these “Bloodsport” debates featured political

inﬂuencers of the AIN and blurred entertainment, political discourse, and far-right

ideology. A number of inﬂuencers used this media to build their own followings

and name recognition on YouTube. Nowhere was this a clearer case than with Andy

Warski, the YouTuber who hosted the scientiﬁc racism debate between Richard

Spencer and Carl Benjamin (Fig. 11). At the time, debates and “drama” had been

taking place between AIN inﬂuencers for months, related to the topic of scientiﬁc

racism. Because of the relative inﬂuence of the participants, Warski advertised this

speciﬁc debate as the ultimate showdown on the topic, a spectacle worth viewing

regardless of the outcome.

The debate was marketed for its entertainment value,

despite the academic and frequently pedantic tone of the conversation, as well as its

extremely long run time. Because of the video’s high viewership, Spencer subsequently

dubbed the debate the “Unite the Right of YouTube,” likening its signiﬁcance to the

march that took place in Charlottesville, Virginia in August 2017.

Fig. 10: Lauren Southern creates controversy at an anti-rape event in a video

posted to Rebel Media’s channel on June 9, 2015.

STRATEGIC CONTROVERSY

Data & Society Research Institute datasociety.net

STRATEGIC CONTROVERSY

The implications of this strategy go beyond the fact that they capitalize on

controversies in order to bring in viewers. It also means that, when viewers actually

engage with the content, they see it framed as lighthearted, entertaining, rebellious,

and fun. This can be highly effective for young audiences embracing a countercultural

identity, but it fundamentally obscures the impact that issues have on vulnerable

and underrepresented populations—in Peterson’s case, the LGBTQ community; in

Southern’s case, rape victims and immigrants; and in Warski’s case, people of color.

Fig. 11: Andy Warski hosts a debate between Richard Spencer and Carl Benjamin, streamed

live on January 4, 2018.

Data & Society Research Institute datasociety.net

FACILITATING RADICALIZATION

THROUGH SOCIAL NETWORKING

The Alternative Inﬂuence Network provides a pathway for the radicalization of

audience members and content creators alike. “Radicalization” is a fraught term,

and in a contemporary US context is most often afﬁliated with Islamic extremism.

While members of the AIN do not use the term “radicalization,” they do often

discuss their own processes of destabilization from previous worldviews. In some

cases, once their previous worldview is dismantled, they embrace alternative

frameworks for understanding the world, such as white nationalism (see, for

example, Blonde in the Belly of the Beast describing her shifting understanding of

the world in “Ideological Testimonials”).

They refer to this process as “taking the red pill,” an allusion to a scene in the movie

The Matrix when the protagonist sees truths about the world that have previously

been hidden from him. White nationalists often describe this as a stepwise process.

For example, in one possible pathway, they may start by rejecting the mainstream

media and “PC culture”; then embrace anti-feminist ideas; then embrace scientiﬁc

racism or the idea that racial oppression is not real; and then ﬁnally, the idea that

Jewish people wield positions of inﬂuence and harbor malicious intents against white

people. (They often refer to these processes

as addressing the “woman question,” the

“race question,” and the “Jewish question,” or

alternatively as “getting redpilled” on any of

these individual issues.)

The previous two sections have begun to

show how the inﬂuencers of the AIN take part

in this stepwise radicalization. For example, inﬂuencers often encourage audience

members to reject the mainstream media in favor of their content, thus priming

their audiences for a destabilized worldview and a rejection of popular narratives

around current events. Then, when libertarian and conservative inﬂuencers invite

white nationalists onto their channels, they expose their audiences to alternative

frameworks for understanding the world. Thus, audiences may quickly move from

following inﬂuencers who criticize feminism to those promoting white nationalism.

This is why the high concentration of the networking between inﬂuencers can prove

so powerful.

...when libertarian and conservative

inﬂuencers invite white nationalists

onto their channels, they expose their

audiences to alternative frameworks

for understanding the world.

Data & Society Research Institute datasociety.net

AUDIENCE RADICALIZATION

Several critics have written about the role of the YouTube recommendation algorithm

in this radicalization process. They have demonstrated how the algorithm can nudge

viewers into accessing extremist content through recommended videos. In an op-

ed for The New York Times, technology scholar Zeynep Tufekci called YouTube “The

Great Radicalizer,” showcasing the ways the algorithm drove her to more and more

extremist content during an experiment.

Another article from an ex-YouTube

employee argued a similar case, claiming that “ﬁction is outperforming reality” in

large part because of the thumbnail video recommendations on the platform.

100

While

these articles identify a real problem, they treat radicalization as a fundamentally

technical problem. What the section below showcases is that radicalization on

YouTube is also a fundamentally social problem. Thus, even if YouTube altered or

fully removed its content recommendation algorithms, the AIN would still provide a

pathway for radicalization.

AUDIENCE RADICALIZATION

Because of the overlapping pattern of guest appearances in the AIN, it is remarkably

easy for viewers to be exposed to incrementally more extremist content. However,

many inﬂuencers fundamentally deny that their collaborations serve as endorsements

or even ampliﬁers of other inﬂuencers’ content. This is the case, for example, with

Dave Rubin. While Rubin himself mainly espouses support for small government and

criticizes social justice in broad terms, he sometimes hosts guests who are openly anti-

immigrant, espouse scientiﬁc racism, or directly identify with the “alt-right.” Rubin

claims that hosting these guests is not an endorsement of them or their positions.

Rubin says that he thinks it is necessary to expose his audiences to dangerous ideas

so they can make fully informed decisions for themselves. He argues that “good

ideas always beat out bad ideas if you let

the light shine on both of them.”

101

This

reading of the situation treats his show as a

journalistic endeavor and endorses the view

that “sunlight is the best disinfectant.” This

interpretation has been challenged by media

scholar Whitney Phillips, who has shown

the damaging impact that exposure to extremist ideas can have. In a recent report on

media coverage of white nationalists, Phillips argues coverage of extremist content is

more likely to be like giving oxygen to a ﬁre.

102

Because the AIN is a social network as much as a professional one, collaborations

can carry more weight than they would in a traditional news media environment.

Inﬂuencers often introduce their guests as friends and describe their personal

relationships to the audience. This type of social networking between inﬂuencers

...social networking between inﬂuencers

makes it easy for audience members to be

incrementally exposed to, and come to trust,

ever more extremist political positions.

Data & Society Research Institute datasociety.net

AUDIENCE RADICALIZATION

makes it easy for audience members to be incrementally exposed to, and come to

trust, ever more extremist political positions.

In one illustrative example of this process, Dave Rubin hosted the Canadian right-

wing inﬂuencer Stefan Molyneux for an interview (Fig. 12). Molyneux is a libertarian

YouTuber and the host of Freedomain Radio, a call-in talk radio show. In his YouTube

videos, Molyneux openly promotes scientiﬁc racism, advocates for the men’s rights

movement, critiques initiatives devoted to gender equity, and promotes white

supremacist conspiracy theories focused on “White Genocide” and “The Great

Replacement.” When Molyneux appeared on Rubin’s show, Rubin did not directly

endorse his views, but the host also did not challenge them in any substantive

way. Rubin largely let Molyneux dominate the terms of the conversation. Take, for

instance, this clip from the interview, when Rubin ﬁrst brings up Molyneux’s beliefs

about IQ:

Rubin: People think that there is somehow a racist element to it. . . .

Do you want to make your basic argument around race and IQ?

Molyneux: It’s like saying ‘do you want to make your argument

that the sun is the center of the solar system?’ It’s like, well it’s not a

personal thing, like this is not an idea I have come up with.

Rubin: I’m glad you countered with that, because in a way my

question accidentally was almost a setup.

103

Later in the interview, Molyneux claims to be “heartbroken” about race and IQ,

saying, “This is one of the most difﬁcult facts I’ve had to absorb in my life.” Rather

than challenging Molyneux’s racist claims, Rubin continues to take him at his word

and treat his racism as fact:

Rubin: But is there evidence that it’s genetic?

Molyneux: Yes.

Rubin: Genetic in what regard? I mean if we took the brain of a

25-year-old black man and the brain of a 25-year-old white man, what

is it that they’re doing that…

Molyneux: They’re different sizes.

Rubin: Yeah?

Data & Society Research Institute datasociety.net

AUDIENCE RADICALIZATION

Molyneux: Yeah.

Molyneux then goes on to argue that IQ remains stable for ethnicities across

environmental factors. Rubin follows up with a question about these factors without

ever addressing Molyneux’s claims about brain sizes. Throughout the interview,

Molyneux promotes ideas of scientiﬁc racism that have been used to justify racial

hierarchies and oppression for centuries. In fact, many of the arguments are exactly

the same as those made by Richard Spencer in his debate about “race realism” with

Carl Benjamin two months later. By letting him speak without providing a legitimate

and robust counterargument, Rubin provides a free platform for white supremacist

ideology on his channel.

Further, in the video description, Rubin posts a number of links to resources

“provided by Stefan’s team” about race and intelligence and encourages viewers to “do

more research on your own.” Among other promotional materials, Rubin lists Stefan

Molyneux’s Twitter account as well as the name of his book. This directive to audience

members to learn for themselves is particularly troubling when put into context by

recent research on information-seeking habits. For example, Tripodi has shown that

Google returns radically different results based on small differences in search queries

for controversial topics—a process which often reafﬁrms the bias of the searcher.

104

This is precisely the experience that political inﬂuencers support with the search

engine optimization techniques described above. For example, at the time of writing,

searching for the term “IQ” on Google returns videos featuring Stefan Molyneux

on the ﬁrst page. In a search for “IQ” on YouTube speciﬁcally, ﬁve of the top seven

results are from political inﬂuencers in the AIN, including Molyneux and Jordan

Peterson. Similarly, the ﬁrst result for “race realism” in YouTube search results is from

the white nationalist publication American Renaissance. Therefore, those doing their

own research on the terms and topics introduced by Molyneux are likely to discover

content supporting the same racist arguments.

Fig. 12: Stefan Molyneux promotes scientiﬁc racism on The Rubin Report in a video posted

on November 9, 2017.

Data & Society Research Institute datasociety.net

INFLUENCER RADICALIZATION

It would take more empirical research to determine the extent to which guest

appearances like Molyneux with Rubin effectively radicalize viewers. However,

some user comments suggest the videos they watch have indeed inﬂuenced them,

given them justiﬁcations to support their views, or convinced them to subscribe to

a new inﬂuencer’s channel. Take, for example, the following comment made about

Molyneux’s appearance on The Rubin Report:

I never heard of this guy before & they started off talking about how

he is super controversial & hated but I watched the whole thing & I

didn’t hear anything that I would consider controversial. He seems to

be extremely intelligent . . . I’m going to subscribe to his channel &

check him out.

INFLUENCER RADICALIZATION

So far, this report has focused on the strategies political inﬂuencers use to persuade

their audiences of their reactionary viewpoints. However, political inﬂuencers also

attempt to persuade each other. This can be a particularly effective tactic for those

who hope to spread extremist ideology; if they radicalize another inﬂuencer, their

message can have access to an entirely new audience. Another factor that inﬂuences

the political commitments of inﬂuencers is that the AIN has an active and responsive

audience. This audience enforces a type of accountability on inﬂuencers, and this

accountability means that audiences can push inﬂuencers toward more extremist

viewpoints—in other words, radicalization can happen in reverse.

We can see this process at work within another Rubin Report segment, one that took

place long before Rubin hosted Stefan Molyneux in late 2017. At the beginning

of 2016, Rubin hosted an interview with the libertarian and conservative radio

commentator Larry Elder.

105

During the segment, Elder (who is African American)

tries to convince Rubin that racism does not exist in contemporary society. Rubin

initially pushes back, citing police brutality as an issue that affects black communities.

In response, Elder lists a number of statistics meant to debunk the claim, arguing that

if anything, white cops are less likely to shoot black citizens for fear of being labeled

racist. Rubin then backs off, saying he thinks racism is still a problem but that it “may

not be systemic . . . in the macro sense.”

Among the comments on Rubin’s videos, there are many posts which celebrate this

segment for being the moment Larry Elder “redpilled” Dave Rubin on systemic

racism. A number of users have posted segments of the interview to their own

YouTube channels with titles like, “The moment LARRY ELDER changed DAVE

RUBINS Mind Forever” [sic]. Rubin himself has talked about the impact this

conversation had on him. In the spring of 2018, he had Elder back on his show and

Data & Society Research Institute datasociety.net

INFLUENCER RADICALIZATION

told him:

That moment where you really beat me senseless about systemic

racism . . . I view it as my best moment and my worst. It was my worst

because I came to an intellectual ﬁght without the proper equipment,

and it was my best because . . . it was a learning moment for me and

for everyone else.

106

Additionally, audience feedback can drive political inﬂuencers to produce more

extremist content. The easy feedback systems on YouTube lead to discursive loops, in

which inﬂuencers build audiences that ask for, or reward, certain types of content.

For many of the political inﬂuencers in the AIN, the more extremist content they

make, the more of an extremist and dedicated audience they build. Such audiences

can, in turn, drive political inﬂuencers to deliver ever more extreme content.

Blaire White’s channel began with videos recounting personal stories and experiences

that made her question the maxims she had learned from popular feminism. “I do

concede that certain situations may lend certain privileges or beneﬁts towards men,”

she said in her channel’s ﬁrst video, posted in December 2015.

107

“However, I feel

like these instances are very much overstated.” In her ﬁfth video, posted January

2016, she answered questions submitted by her viewers. One of them asked, “Would

you ever do a video with Sargon of Akkad?”

108

At this point, White was still building

a following, and Carl Benjamin (Sargon of

Akkad) had already built a following based

on his anti-feminist content in gaming

communities. She responded by saying a lot

of people had asked for this, but her fans

needed to ask him. She directs them to tweet

at and message him. The very next video she posted, a week later, takes a much

harder line against feminism—titled “Feminism Is Pointless,” it begins with White

calling feminism “cancer” and showing how it spreads “like a virus.”

109

Over time, White also began incorporating the slang used on the anonymous message

boards 4chan and 8chan, where discourse is often openly racist, sexist, and anti-

Semitic. For example, “trap” is a term used widely in such spaces to refer to trans

women who “trick” cisgender, straight men into sleeping with them. The LGBTQ

media advocacy group GLAAD has listed the term as an example of defamatory

language, writing “such descriptions are inaccurate, defamatory, and insulting.”

110

Nevertheless, in a 2017 video, White opened her video with, “Congratulations, you

degenerates. You ﬁnally got me to make the video. We’re ﬁnally going to address the

question that’s as old as 4chan. . . . Are traps gay?”

111

She overlaid the video with

images of tweets, comments, and posts asking her the same question. Over time,

...audience feedback can drive

political inﬂuencers to produce

more extremist content.

Data & Society Research Institute datasociety.net

INFLUENCER RADICALIZATION

then, her content has moved from general critiques of social justice to explicitly

offensive content targeted directly at audiences known to be openly bigoted.

The ideological loops between inﬂuencers and audiences can also take place within

the course of a single video. Many of the YouTubers in the AIN make use of YouTube

live stream, broadcasting to their followers in real time (users can later archive these

videos so they remain accessible). In these cases, viewers can comment on inﬂuencer’s

videos in real time, and the inﬂuencers often respond within the video.

YouTube monetized these interactions with the introduction of Super Chat in 2017.

Super Chat is a feature that allows users to pay money to have their comments

highlighted and pinned on a comment stream.

112

Super Chat is a particularly

appealing feature for content creators because it is another way to monetize their

content, even if their videos overall have been demonetized by the platform. A recent

article in Buzzfeed News counted the Super Chat intake from two far-right videos,

ﬁnding they each brought in $4,000 (of which YouTube takes a cut).

113

In these contexts, viewers often purposefully make shocking or offensive comments in

an attempt to get the inﬂuencers to read them on screen (Fig. 13). In one particularly

disturbing video from March 15, 2018, political inﬂuencers Andy Warski and Baked

Alaska, along with live streamer Asian Andy, ﬁlmed themselves wandering around Los

Angeles for ﬁve hours.

114

They called the event the “IRL Bloodsports” (“IRL” refers to

“in real life”), and they set up a speaker with an automated voice that read Super Chat

comments as text-to-speech. Within minutes, offensive comments were automatically

being read out loud in front of their Uber driver. In many cases, these comments were

speciﬁcally crafted to avoid any keyword ﬁlters or censorship attempts set up ahead

of time from the live streamers or from YouTube. See, for example, the following

comment which was read in full during the video: “Hey Baked, remember that time

Fig. 13: The YouTubers Andy Warski, Baked Alaska, and Asian Andy respond to offensive

user comments in real time, in a video streamed live on March 15, 2018.

Data & Society Research Institute datasociety.net

INFLUENCER RADICALIZATION

we tag teamed a 12-year-old virgin? Good times!!”

115

Overall, this system is one in

which both individual inﬂuencers and YouTube as a corporate entity are incentivized

to draw in money through extremist and/or offensive audience-driven content.

Data & Society Research Institute datasociety.net

CONCLUSION

This report has shown how a particular network of political inﬂuencers perpetuates

far-right ideology on YouTube and other social media platforms. Speciﬁcally,

individuals from academic and media institutions and reactionary or extremist

movements have used participatory digital media to broadcast to new audiences and

rebrand old, often bigoted and discriminatory ideas. Content creators have employed

the tactics used by brand inﬂuencers, along with social networking, to establish an

alternative to mainstream news, convey their ideas to audiences, and monetize their

content. As a result, audiences and inﬂuencers alike are accessing, producing, and

supporting extremist and often harmful content.

There is an undercurrent to this report that is worth making explicit: in many

ways, YouTube is built to incentivize the behavior of these political inﬂuencers. YouTube

monetizes inﬂuence for everyone, regardless of how harmful their belief systems are.

The platform, and its parent company, have allowed racist, misogynist, and harassing

content to remain online – and in many cases, to generate advertising revenue – as

long as it does not explicitly include slurs. YouTube also proﬁts directly from features

like Super Chat which often incentivizes “shocking” content. In other words, the type

of content and engagement

created by the AIN ﬁts neatly

into YouTube’s business

model.

Political inﬂuencers often

fundamentally understand

this. While they posture as

being underground and facing

censorship from YouTube,

they also know they are being

given a major platform from

which to broadcast their

views. On May 23, 2018,

Paul Joseph Watson tweeted

a photo of himself holding

up a plaque YouTube sent

to him for surpassing one

million subscribers (Fig. 14).

He added a caption, “YouTube

secretly loves me.”

Fig. 14: Paul Joseph Watson displays a plaque given to him by YouTube.

Data & Society Research Institute datasociety.net

CONCLUSION

Internet scholar Tarleton Gillespie has written that websites such as YouTube advertise

themselves as “open, neutral, [and] egalitarian.”

116

The term “platform” itself has

helped YouTube position itself as a neutral utility that helps facilitate “free speech” and

“openness.” The website similarly seeks policies that offer it protection for hosting

user-generated content while simultaneously facing minimal liability for what those

users say. This report has shown how these attempts at objectivity are being exploited

by users who fundamentally reject objectivity as a valid stance. As a result, platforms

like YouTube have an imperative to govern content and behavior for explicit values,

such as the rejection of content that promotes white supremacy, regardless of whether

it includes slurs.

While much more research is needed to investigate the effectiveness of speciﬁc

responses, Paul Joseph Watson’s tweet suggests one concrete step YouTube can take

in response. The platform currently provides Silver, Gold, and Diamond awards for

content creators who have reached 100,000, 1 million, or 10 million subscribers,

respectively. At this point, the platform reviews channels to make sure they do not

have copyright strikes and do not violate YouTube’s community guidelines. At these

junctures, the platform should not only assess what channels say in their content,

but also who they host and what their guests say. In a media environment consisting

of networked inﬂuencers, YouTube must respond with policies that account for

inﬂuence and ampliﬁcation, as well as social networks.

Discussing images of the “alt-right” or white supremacism often conjures a sense

of the “dark corners of the internet,” ﬁlled with “anonymous commenters” who

don’t dare show their faces, operating on forums like 4chan, in the comments

sections of YouTube, or behind “egg avatars” on Twitter. In fact, much extremist

content is happening front and center, easily accessible on platforms like YouTube,

publicly endorsed by well-resourced individuals, and interfacing directly with

mainstream culture.

Data & Society Research Institute datasociety.net

APPENDIX A:

INDEX OF AIN INFLUENCERS

(written with Brian Friedberg)

The following Appendix introduces the inﬂuencers who are explicitly named in this

report; it does not include all of the inﬂuencers analyzed in this research, nor all of

those listed in the data visualization in Fig. 1.

Internet Aristocrat (now known as Mister Metokur) is an unidentiﬁed YouTuber

who posted inﬂuential conspiracy theories during the Gamergate events in 2014. He

now goes by the pseudonym Mister Metokur and appears in “Bloodsports” debates

alongside openly far-right guests.

Carl Benjamin (Sargon of Akkad) is a British vlogger and “anti-SJW” content

creator. Throughout the Gamergate movement, he posted content critical of feminist

game critics and academics. He has since become a prominent member of the skeptic

community and promotes “classical liberalism.” In January 2018, he appeared in a

debate with Richard Spencer on the topic of scientiﬁc racism.

Taleed Brown (That Guy T) is a libertarian vlogger who expresses sympathy for

black nationalism and ethno-nationalism more broadly. He has appeared on the white

nationalist Colin Robertson’s channel (Millennial Woes) during the “Millenniyule”

series in December 2017.

Steven Crowder is an American, Christian conservative commentator and talk show

host. On his channel, he broadcasts political comedy sketches and stunts, such as

those in which he appears on college campuses asking participants to “change his

mind” about controversial political topics.

James Damore is an American former Google engineer. At Google, he gained

notoriety after the leak of his memo about the company’s diversity initiatives. He

does not have his own YouTube channel, but he has appeared as a guest on the

channels of multiple inﬂuencers, such as Dave Rubin, Milo Yiannopolous, and Stefan

Molyneux.

Larry Elder is an American libertarian radio host and commentator. He has appeared

on libertarian and conservative YouTube channels, such as The Rubin Report and

PragerU, where he has argued against the existence of systematic racism in the United

States.

Data & Society Research Institute datasociety.net

APPENDIX A: INDEX OF AIN INFLUENCERS

Marcus Follin (The Golden One) is a Swedish self-help inﬂuencer who posts

a blend of men’s rights, white nationalist, and fantasy enthusiast content. On his

channel, he promotes hyper-traditional gender roles, commitment to physical ﬁtness,

and mythology.

Jean-François Gariépy is a French-Canadian YouTuber who promotes scientiﬁc

racism and ethno-nationalism. In early 2018, he co-hosted a number of “Bloodsports”

debates alongside Andy Warski on the latter’s show Warski Live. He has since left to

host content on his own channel.

Timothy Gionet (Baked Alaska) is a social media personality who has published

anti-Semitic content online and who marched at Unite the Right in Charlottesville.

On YouTube, he has hosted live streamed debates between far-right personalities. He

has also appeared alongside Andy Warski in the “IRL Bloodsports.”

Rebecca Hargraves (Blonde in the Belly of the Beast) is a conservative, anti-

feminist vlogger who also frequently employs white nationalist arguments.

Sam Harris is an American philosopher and neuroscientist who hosts a podcast

called Waking Up with Sam Harris. He is known as one of the “four horsemen” of the

New Atheist movement. He is also a frequent critic of contemporary Islam and often

appears alongside self-identiﬁed members of the “Intellectual Dark Web.”

Stefan Molyneux is a Canadian talk show host who promotes scientiﬁc racism,

advocates on behalf of men’s rights, and criticizes initiatives devoted to gender equity.

He also frequently promotes far-right conspiracy theories.

MundaneMatt is a YouTuber who was a primary organizer of harassment against

Zoe Quinn throughout Gamergate. He still actively posts “anti-SJW” content and

frequently appears alongside far-right YouTubers on live streams and debates.

Antonia Okafor is an American, conservative activist who often advocates on behalf

of “campus carry” laws. She has appeared in PragerU videos describing why she is a

black, millennial conservative.

Candace Owens (Red Pill Black) is an American conservative commentator and

Director of Urban Engagement at Turning Point USA, a conservative activist group

focused on mobilizing college students. She hosts a vlog series in which she criticizes

the Democratic Party and racial justice movements such as Black Lives Matter.

Jordan Peterson is a Canadian public intellectual, author, and professor of

Data & Society Research Institute datasociety.net

APPENDIX A: INDEX OF AIN INFLUENCERS

psychology at the University of Toronto. He gained mainstream media attention for

opposing the gender equity Bill C-16 in Canada in 2016. He has since published a

best-selling self-help book called 12 Rules for Life: An Antidote to Chaos. He frequently

appears alongside other self-identiﬁed members of the “Intellectual Dark Web.”

Brittany Pettibone is an American political commentator who frequently collaborates

with her boyfriend Martin Sellner and her friend Lauren Southern. Her content

features her tours of Europe in which she engages in anti-immigrant protests.

Tim Pool is an American citizen journalist who often covers political protests. He

previously worked for Vice News and FusionTV before launching his independent

YouTube channel. In his content, he frequently criticizes legacy media outlets and

provides commentary on news media production processes.

Colin Robertson (Millennial Woes) is a Scottish white-nationalist vlogger. For

the past several Decembers, he has hosted an event called “Milleniyule” in which he

invites a range of white supremacist, libertarian, and conservative guests onto his

channel.

Joe Rogan is an American comedian and the host of The Joe Rogan Experience podcast.

On his show, he hosts guests with a wide range of political views. Some of these

include conservative and libertarian YouTubers, as well as self-identiﬁed members of

the “Intellectual Dark Web.”

Dave Rubin is an American YouTube talk show host who frequently hosts libertarian

and conservative guests. He is a self-deﬁned “classical liberal” who values individual

liberty and small government. He has a partnership with the libertarian organization

Learn Liberty, a subsidiary of the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason

University. He is also a self-identiﬁed member of the “Intellectual Dark Web.”

Martin Sellner is an Austrian far-right leader and the co-founder of Generation

Identity, a far-right European youth organization. His high-proﬁle relationship with

Brittany Pettibone has been well-documented on both of their channels, and he has

organized both online and ofﬂine protests against immigration advocacy groups.

Ben Shapiro is an American conservative commentator and former editor-at-large at

Breitbart News. He founded and hosts videos on The Daily Wire, where he promotes

conservativism from an Orthodox Jewish perspective. He sometimes appears in

content with self-described members of the “Intellectual Dark Web.”

Lauren Southern is a Canadian citizen journalist and former contributor to the

online outlet The Rebel Media. She publishes anti-feminist, anti-Islamic, and anti-

Data & Society Research Institute datasociety.net

APPENDIX A: INDEX OF AIN INFLUENCERS

immigration content and frequently collaborates with the inﬂuencer Brittany

Pettibone.

Richard Spencer is an American white nationalist leader and celebrity who

popularized the term “alt-right.” He hosts a ﬁlmed podcast from his YouTube channel

Altright.com.

Ayla Stewart (Wife with a Purpose) is an American “pro-white” vlogger who

promotes traditional gender values (“trad life”) and Christianity. Her channel mixes

lifestyle content with political ideology.

Jared Taylor is an American white nationalist and the founder and editor of the

magazine American Renaissance. On the magazine’s YouTube channel, he frequently

promotes scientiﬁc racism, anti-immigration, and white nationalist content.

Andy Warski is a Canadian YouTube talk show host who facilitates live streamed

debates between inﬂuencers on his show Warski Live. Alongside his former co-host

Jean-François Gariépy, he formalized the “Internet Bloodsports” debate series.

Paul Joseph Watson is the British editor-at-large of the conspiracy theory media

outlet Infowars. He also posts his own content to his YouTube channel, in which

he criticizes social justice movements, mainstream news media, and mainstream

entertainment.

Blaire White is an American, conservative vlogger who posts content criticizing

social justice movements. She often discusses her identity as a trans woman who

opposes contemporary LGBTQ activist movements and denies the existence of

nonbinary gender identities.

Milo Yiannopolous is a British media provocateur with ties to white nationalists.

He was formerly a senior editor at Breitbart News but resigned after publicly making

comments in support of pedophilia.

Data & Society Research Institute datasociety.net

APPENDIX B:

NETWORK VISUALIZATION

Note (as of the publishing of this report): Some inﬂuencers have multiple channels,

some inﬂuencers host speciﬁc shows within their channels, and some inﬂuencers

do not have their own channels but appear as guests frequently enough that I have

included them in the network. In addition, there are some members of the AIN

discussed in this report whose guest appearances were infrequent and thus did not

appear in the visualization.

INFLUENCER NAME CHANNEL NAME(S) SHOW/SERIES NAME

Andrew Klavan The Daily Wire The Andrew Klavan Show

Andy Warski Andywarski Warski Live

Annand Virk (Bunty

King)

Bunty King

Antonia Okafur

Ayla Stewart (Wife with

a Purpose)

Ayla Stewart Wife with a Purpose

Ben Shapiro The Daily Wire The Ben Shapiro Show

Black Pigeon Speaks Black Pigeon Speaks; Navy Hato

Blaire White Blaire White

Blonde in the Belly of

the Beast

Blonde in the Belly of the Beast

Braving Ruin (No longer active) Braving Ruin;

Braving Ruin Archives; Braving Ruin

Live

Bre Faucheux Bre Faucheux This Week on the Alt-Right

(formerly)

Brittany Pettibone Brittany Pettibone

Brooks Heatherly (No

Bullshit)

No Bullshit; No Bullshit 2

Candace Owens (Red

Pill Black)

Candace Owens The Declaration (formerly Myth of

the Coon)

Caolan Robertson Caolan Robertson The Culture Report

Carl Benjamin (Sargon

of Akkad)

Sargon of Akkad Live; The Thinkery This Week in Stupid

Chris Maldonado

(Chris Ray Gun)

Chris Ray Gun

Data & Society Research Institute datasociety.net

APPENDIX B: NETWORK VISUALIZATION

Coach Red Pill Coach Red Pill; CRP Streams/Backup;

Coach and Benway Podcast

Dave Cullen

(Computing Forever)

Computing Forever; The Dave Cullen

Show; Computing Forever Archive

The Dave Cullen Show

Dave Rubin The Rubin Report The Rubin Report

Dennis Prager PragerU

Derrick Blackman

(Some Black Guy)

Some Black Guy; Derrick Blackman

Faith J Goldy Faith J Goldy (formerly The Rebel

Media)

Gavin McInnes Gavin MicInnes (formerly The Rebel

Media)

Henrik Palmgren Red Ice TV

James Allsup James Allsup

James Damore

James O’Keefe Project Veritas; Project Veritas Action

Jared Taylor American Renaissance

Jean-François Gariépy Jean-François Gariépy

Jeff Holiday Jeff Holiday; YouTube Saints; Jeff

Holiday 2 Electric Boogaloo

Joe Rogan PowerfulJRE The Joe Rogan Experience

Jordan Peterson Jordan Peterson

Kraut and Tea Kraut (no longer active)

Lana Lokteff Red Ice TV

Larry Elder

Lauren Southern Lauren Southern (previously The

Rebel Media)

Marcus Follin (The

Golden One)

The Golden One

Mark Collett Mark Collett This Week on the Alt-Right

Martin Sellner Martin Sellner; Martin Sellner GI

Matt Jarbo (Mundane

Matt)

MundaneMatt; Mundane Chats;

Forbidden Knowledge

Michael Knowles The Daily Wire The Michael Knowles Show

Mike Cernovich Mike Cernovich

Mike Enoch

Millennial Woes Millennial Woes; MW Live; MW Off-

Duty

Millenniyule (seasonal)

Milo Yiannopolous MILO The Milo Show

Mister Metokur Mister Metokur (formerly Internet

Aristocrat)

Data & Society Research Institute datasociety.net

APPENDIX B: NETWORK VISUALIZATION

Mouthy Buddha Mouthy Buddha

Nicholas J Fuentes Nicholas J Fuentes America First

Owen Benjamin Owen Benjamin

Paul Joseph Watson Paul Joseph Watson

Richard Spencer Altright.com Alt-Right Politics

Roaming Millennial Roaming Millennial

Sam Harris Sam Harris Waking Up with Sam Harris

Stefan Molyneux Stefan Molyneux Freedomain Radio

Stephen Christopher

Yaxley-Lennon

(Tommy Robinson)

(formerly The Rebel Media)

Steven Bonnell II

(Destiny)

Destiny

Steven Crowder StevenCrowder Louder with Crowder

Styxhexenhammer666 Styxhexenhammer666

Taleed Brown (That

Guy T)

That Guy T

Tara McCarthy The Reality Calls Show The Reality Call Show (no longer

active)

Tim Pool Tim Pool; Timcast; Subverse

Timothy Gionet (Baked

Alaska)

Baked Alaska; Baked Alaska

Livestreams; (formerly) The BA

Experience

The BA Experience

Tree of Logic Tree of Logic; Tree of Logic –

Livestreams

Vee Vee; Vee Live Stream

Data & Society Research Institute datasociety.net

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I am incredibly grateful to Data & Society for supporting and guiding me throughout

this project. In particular, the project beneﬁted from extensive conversations,

collaboration, and feedback from my colleagues on the Media Manipulation Initiative.

Thank you also to the external readers of this report, who were all extremely generous

with their time and feedback on earlier drafts. Finally, thank you to my family; your

support means the world to me.

Data & Society Research Institute datasociety.net

DATA & SOCIETY

Data & Society is an independent nonproﬁt research institute that advances new

frames for understanding the implications of data-centric and automated technology.

We conduct research and build the ﬁeld of actors to ensure that knowledge guides

debate, decision-making, and technical choices.

www.datasociety.net

@datasociety

Data & Society Research Institute datasociety.net

ENDNOTES

1 Matthew N. Lyons, “Ctrl-Alt-Delete: The Origins and Ideology of the Alternative Right | Political Research

Associates,” accessed March 8, 2017, http://www.politicalresearch.org/2017/01/20/ctrl-alt-delete-report-on-the-

alternative-right/.

2 While there is a contemporary movement that self-identiﬁes as “neoreactionary,” or “NRx,” the people

analyzed in this report largely do not use the term “reactionary” to describe themselves.

3 Aaron Smith and Monica Anderson, “Social Media Use in 2018” (Pew Research Center, March 1, 2018),

http://www.pewinternet.org/2018/03/01/social-media-use-in-2018/pi_2018-03-01_social-media_0-01/.

4 Elisa Shearer and Jeffrey Gottfried, “News Use Across Social Media Platforms 2017,” Pew Research Center’s

Journalism Project (blog), September 7, 2017, http://www.journalism.org/2017/09/07/news-use-across-social-media-

platforms-2017/; Adam Wagner, “Are You Maximizing The Use Of Video In Your Content Marketing Strategy?,”

Forbes, accessed May 30, 2018, https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesagencycouncil/2017/05/15/are-you-maximizing-

the-use-of-video-in-your-content-marketing-strategy/.

5 Art Swift, “Americans’ Trust in Mass Media Sinks to New Low,” Gallup (blog), September 14, 2016, http://

www.gallup.com/poll/195542/americans-trust-mass-media-sinks-new-low.aspx.

6 “Abstract: Please Subscribe!,” Wishcrys (blog), October 18, 2015, https://wishcrys.com/abstract-please-

subscribe-2/.

7 “Abstract.”

8 Crystal Abidin, “‘Aren’t These Just Young, Rich Women Doing Vain Things Online?’: Inﬂuencer

Selﬁes as Subversive Frivolity,” Social Media + Society 2, no. 2 (April 2016): 205630511664134, https://doi.

org/10.1177/2056305116641342.

9 Anatoliy Gruzd and Barry Wellman, “Networked Inﬂuence in Social Media, Networked Inﬂuence in Social

Media: Introduction to the Special Issue, Introduction to the Special Issue,” American Behavioral Scientist 58, no. 10

(September 1, 2014): 1251–59, https://doi.org/10.1177/0002764214527087.

10 wishcrys, “YouTuber Inﬂuencers vs. Legacy Media: PewDiePie, Weaponized Microcelebrity, and Cross-

Media Politics,” Wishcrys (blog), February 22, 2017, https://wishcrys.com/2017/02/22/youtuber-inﬂuencers-vs-

legacy-media-pewdiepie-weaponized-microcelebrity-and-cross-media-politics/.

11 Jean Burgess and Joshua Green, YouTube, Digital Media and Society Series (Cambridge, UK: Polity, 2009).

12 “How to Make a Collaboration Video on YouTube,” Vlog Nation (blog), May 30, 2017, https://www.

vlognation.com/how-to-make-youtube-collab/.

13 Millennial Woes, The Archetype of the SJW, accessed July 21, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/

watch?v=y67D7AWr2lo.

14 Sargon of Akkad Livestreams, Interviewing Dr Jordan Peterson, accessed May 16, 2018, https://www.

youtube.com/watch?v=VJMCQ94t98k.

15 “The Rubin Report - YouTube - YouTube,” accessed May 16, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/user/

RubinReport.

16 The Rubin Report, What Is The Intellectual Dark Web?, accessed April 14, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/

watch?v=n5HN-KT9rj0.

Data & Society Research Institute datasociety.net

ENDNOTES

17 Shira Chess and Adrienne Shaw, “A Conspiracy of Fishes, or, How We Learned to Stop Worrying About

#GamerGate and Embrace Hegemonic Masculinity,” Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 59, no. 1 (March 11,

2015): 208–20.

18 Millennial Woes, Sargon’s Alt-Right Survey [with Sargon of Akkad], accessed July 19, 2018, https://www.

youtube.com/watch?v=YrifNqi2qjo.

19 The Thinkery, The Thinkery Podcast #14 - Jared Taylor, accessed July 21, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/

watch?v=jLUZ4uJlkvQ; Millennial Woes, Millenniyule 2017 #1: Sargon of Akkad, accessed July 11, 2018, https://www.

youtube.com/watch?v=HfU1zOoAh-U.

20 Millennial Woes, Millenniyule 2017 #1; Millennial Woes, Sargon’s Alt-Right Survey [with Sargon of Akkad].

21 Millennial Woes, Millenniyule 2017 #1.

22 Millennial Woes, Millenniyule 2017 #46: Jared Taylor, accessed July 11, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/

watch?v=URtaaC1yFD0.

23 Millennial Woes, Millenniyule 2017 #1.

24 StevenCrowder, Stefan Molyneux on “The Art of the Argument” (Uncut Extended) | Louder With Crowder,

accessed July 21, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=467S8XyTT7Y; Stefan Molyneux, Banned From

The United Kingdom | Brittany Pettibone and Martin Sellner, accessed July 21, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/

watch?v=9f2lzHQqjtk.

25 The Daily Wire, LOVE IN THE TIME OF MAGA Ft. Roaming Millennial | Ep. 29, accessed July 25, 2018,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rh_u0LKg6vk; Roaming Millennial, Ben Shapiro Interview | Trump, God & Health

Care, accessed July 25, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yFz6O1Kl0j4; Roaming Millennial, Richard Spencer

Interview | What Is the Alt-Right? (Pt. 1), accessed July 25, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mlOv3BXSyJM.

26 Mary Madden, Amanda Lenhart, and Claire Fontaine, “How Youth Navigate the News Landscape”

(Data & Society Research Institute, February 2017), https://kf-site-production.s3.amazonaws.com/publications/

pdfs/000/000/230/original/Youth_News.pdf.

27 Swift, “Americans’ Trust in Mass Media Sinks to New Low.”

28 Madden, Lenhart, and Fontaine, “How Youth Navigate the News Landscape.”

29 Yochai Benkler, Hal Roberts, and Ethan Zuckerman, “Study: Breitbart-Led Right-Wing Media Ecosystem

Altered Broader Media Agenda,” Columbia Journalism Review, March 3, 2017, http://www.cjr.org/analysis/breitbart-

media-trump-harvard-study.php.

30 John McMillian, Smoking Typewriters: The Sixties Underground Press and the Rise of Alternative Media in

America (New York, NY: Oxford University Press, USA, 2011).

31 Stuart Cunningham and David Craig, “Being ‘Really Real’ on YouTube: Authenticity, Community and Brand

Culture in Social Media Entertainment, Being ‘Really Real’ on YouTube: Authenticity, Community and Brand Culture

in Social Media Entertainment,” Media International Australia 164, no. 1 (August 1, 2017): 71–81, https://doi.

org/10.1177/1329878X17709098.

32 Reece Peck, Fox News Decoded (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, Forthcoming).

33 Tim Pool, THIS IS THE FUTURE OF NEWS, accessed April 15, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/

watch?v=gVVMlbIbGyk.

34 Media Insight Project, “‘Who Shared It?’ How Americans Decide What News to Trust on Social Media”

(American Press Institute and the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, March 20, 2017),

Data & Society Research Institute datasociety.net

ENDNOTES

http://www.mediainsight.org/PDFs/Trust%20Social%20Media%20Experiments%202017/MediaInsight_Social%20

Media%20Final.pdf.

35 Madden, Lenhart, and Fontaine, “How Youth Navigate the News Landscape.”

36 wishcrys, “YouTuber Inﬂuencers vs. Legacy Media.”

37 Tim Pool, POWERFUL MAINSTREAM NEWS VS INDEPENDENT MEDIA, accessed April 15, 2018, https://

www.youtube.com/watch?v=QUIqDPVF3UI.

38 Tim Pool, THIS IS THE FUTURE OF NEWS.

39 wishcrys, “YouTuber Inﬂuencers vs. Legacy Media.”

40 Brooke Erin Duffy, “The Romance of Work: Gender and Aspirational Labour in the Digital

Culture Industries,” International Journal of Cultural Studies 19, no. 4 (July 1, 2016): 441–57, https://doi.

org/10.1177/1367877915572186.

41 Duffy.

42 The Rubin Report, What Is The Intellectual Dark Web?

43 “The Rubin Report and Learn Liberty Fight for Free Speech,” Learn Liberty, accessed April 14, 2018, http://

www.learnliberty.org/blog/the-rubin-report-and-learn-liberty-ﬁght-for-free-speech/.

44 Jane Mayer, Dark Money (New York: Doubleday, 2016).

45 Michael Schudson, Discovering the News: A Social History of American Newspapers (Hachette Book Group,

1978).

46 The Rubin Report, What Is The Intellectual Dark Web?

47 Cunningham and Craig, “Being ‘Really Real’ on YouTube.”

48 Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity, and Branding in the Social Media Age (New Haven: Yale

University Press, 2015).

49 Alice Marwick and danah boyd, “To See and Be Seen: Celebrity Practice on Twitter,” Convergence 17, no. 2

(May 19, 2011).

50 Blaire White, Responding To Criticism + Hate, accessed April 16, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/

watch?v=XuAuImnTPGc.

51 Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Publi Discourse in the Age of Show Business (USA: Penguin Books,

1985).

52 Abidin, ““Aren’t These Just Young, Rich Women Doing Vain Things Online?”; Duffy, “The Romance of

Work.”

53 Peck, Fox News Decoded.

54 Peck.

55 Blaire White, Q&A: My Family, Pronouns, accessed April 11, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/

watch?v=5mQ7KTxv6UQ.

56 Blaire White, 10 Media Lies You Probably Believed, accessed May 18, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/

watch?v=fzZ-aRgjyVk.

Data & Society Research Institute datasociety.net

ENDNOTES

57 Blaire White, DE-TRANSITIONING. REGRET & GOING BACK, accessed May 18, 2018, https://www.

youtube.com/watch?v=jDIrnp2iNJU.

58 The Rubin Report, What Is The Intellectual Dark Web?

59 Daniel Kreiss, “The Media Are about Identity, Not Information,” in Trump and the Media, ed. Pablo J.

Boczkowski and Zizi Papacharissi (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2018), 93–99.

60 Kreiss.

61 Peck, Fox News Decoded; Alice Marwick, “Why Do People Share Fake News? A Sociotechnical Model of

Media Effects,” Georgetown Law Technology Review, July 2018.

62 Peck, Fox News Decoded.

63 Tripodi, “Searching for Alternative Facts,” 45.

64 Candace Owens, Mom, Dad....I’m a Conservative., accessed April 16, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/

watch?v=dgKc-2rFcRw.

65 Francesca Tripodi, “Just for Clicks? Mainstreaming the Extreme Through Conservative Media Networks,”

D&S Media Manipulation: Dispatches from the Field (blog), May 30, 2018, https://medium.com/@MediaManipulation/

just-for-clicks-b53be542aa43.

66 Caroline Jack, Becca Lewis, and Kinjal Dave, “‘Viewpoint Diversity’ and the Illusion of an Impartial

Center,” Dispatches from the Field, Data & Society (blog), April 19, 2018, https://medium.com/@MediaManipulation/

viewpoint-diversity-and-the-illusion-of-an-impartial-center-3bb69b949c8d.

67 Todd Spangler, “YouTube Sets Stricter Requirements for Creator Partners in Response to Advertiser

Concerns,” Variety (blog), January 16, 2018, https://variety.com/2018/digital/news/youtube-changes-partner-

program-google-preferred-advertisers-1202665815/.

68 Megan Farokhmanesh, “YouTube Is Still Restricting and Demonetizing LGBT Videos — and Adding

Anti-LGBT Ads to Some,” The Verge, June 4, 2018, https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/4/17424472/youtube-lgbt-

demonetization-ads-algorithm.

69 Jessie Daniels, White Lies: Race, Class, Gender and Sexuality in White Supremacist Discourse (New York:

Routledge, 1997).

70 Paul Joseph Watson, Conservatism Is the NEW Counter-Culture, accessed May 16, 2018, https://www.

youtube.com/watch?v=avb8cwOgVQ8.

71 Cory Collins, “What Is the ‘Alt-Right’?,” Teaching Tolerance, August 13, 2017, https://www.tolerance.org/

magazine/fall-2017/what-is-the-altright.

72 Zack Beauchamp, “Milo Yiannopoulos: Breitbart’s Star Provocateur and Trump Champion, Explained,” Vox,

April 4, 2016, https://www.vox.com/2016/4/4/11355876/milo-yiannopoulos.

73 Nabiha Syed, “Real Talk About Fake News: Towards a Better Theory for Platform Governance,” accessed

June 25, 2018, https://www.yalelawjournal.org/forum/real-talk-about-fake-news; Tim Wu, “Is the First Amendment

Obsolete? | Knight First Amendment Institute,” accessed June 25, 2018, https://knightcolumbia.org/content/tim-wu-

ﬁrst-amendment-obsolete.

74 Danielle Keats Citron, Hate Crimes in Cyberspace (Harvard University Press, 2014).

75 Citron.

Data & Society Research Institute datasociety.net

ENDNOTES

76 Zack Abnet, “Why I Left The Young Turks” - Dave Rubin’s Story, accessed April 12, 2018, https://www.

youtube.com/watch?v=Ueb2FYRqfXI.

77 Real Time with Bill Maher, Ben Afﬂeck, Sam Harris and Bill Maher Debate Radical Islam | Real Time with Bill

Maher (HBO), accessed April 12, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vln9D81eO60.

78 Blaire White, Q&A.

79 PragerU, Black, Millennial, Female And… Conservative, accessed June 19, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/

watch?v=MydjXCHoLo0.

80 Daniels, White Lies: Race, Class, Gender and Sexuality in White Supremacist Discourse.

81 Marwick, “Why Do People Share Fake News? A Sociotechnical Model of Media Effects.”

82 Duffy, “The Romance of Work.” 451.

83 Alice E. Marwick, Status Update: Celebrity, Publicity, and Branding in the Social Media Age (Yale University

Press, 2013).

84 “Wife With A Purpose - YouTube - YouTube,” accessed April 14, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/user/

adorableayla/about.

85 Alice E. Marwick, “Instafame: Luxury Selﬁes in the Attention Economy,” Public Culture 27, no. 1 75

(January 2015): 137–60, https://doi.org/10.1215/08992363-2798379.

86 Brittany Pettibone, What Is Generation Identity?, accessed July 12, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/

watch?v=DIZ3DVozFv8.

87 Michael Golebiewski and danah boyd, “Data Voids: Where Missing Data Can Easily Be Exploited” (New

York: Data & Society Research Institute, May 2018).

88 Bernhard Rieder, Ariadna Matamoros-Fernández, and Òscar Coromina, “From Ranking Algorithms to

‘Ranking Cultures’, From Ranking Algorithms to ‘Ranking Cultures’: Investigating the Modulation of Visibility in

YouTube Search Results, Investigating the Modulation of Visibility in YouTube Search Results,” Convergence 24, no. 1

(February 1, 2018): 50–68, https://doi.org/10.1177/1354856517736982.

89 Rieder, Matamoros-Fernández, and Coromina.

90 PragerU, What Is Social Justice?, accessed June 27, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rtBvQj2k6xo.

91 Alice Marwick and Rebecca Lewis, “Media Manipulation and Disinformation Online,” White paper (Data

& Society Research Institute, May 2017).

92 Torontoist, “Are Jordan Peterson’s Claims About Bill C-16 Correct?,” Torontoist, December 19, 2016,

https://torontoist.com/2016/12/are-jordan-petersons-claims-about-bill-c-16-correct/.

93 Bari Weiss and Damon Winter, “Opinion | Meet the Renegades of the Intellectual Dark Web,” The New York

Times, May 8, 2018, sec. Opinion, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/05/08/opinion/intellectual-dark-web.html.

94 The Rubin Report, Jordan Peterson and Ben Shapiro: Frontline of Free Speech (LIVE), accessed June 27, 2018,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRPDGEgaATU.

95 The Rebel Media, Lauren Southern Clashes with Feminists at SlutWalk, accessed April 16, 2018, https://www.

youtube.com/watch?v=7Qv-swaYWL0.

96 Ryan Broderick, “Far-Right Activists Are Stealing Tricks From YouTubers And It’s Going To Get

Data & Society Research Institute datasociety.net

ENDNOTES

People Hurt,” Buzzfeed News, June 22, 2017, https://www.buzzfeed.com/ryanhatesthis/the-far-right-inﬂuencer-

playbook?utm_term=.xdWL5Gx24#.nfoAZK7Qw.

97 Andywarski, Richard Spencer, Styx and Sargon Have a Chat - Andy and JF Moderate, accessed May 7, 2018,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiUH-tWHbr8.

98 Altright.com, 7 January, 2018 - Iranian Insurrection, Marijuana, Bannon Burned, and Skeptopocalypse,

accessed March 30, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xD1rp9h5nO0&bpctr=1536186156.

99 Zeynep Tufekci, “YouTube, the Great Radicalizer,” The New York Times, March 10, 2018, sec. Sunday

Review, https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/10/opinion/sunday/youtube-politics-radical.html.

100 Paul Lewis, “‘Fiction Is Outperforming Reality’: How YouTube’s Algorithm Distorts Truth,” The Guardian,

February 2, 2018, sec. Technology, http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2018/feb/02/how-youtubes-algorithm-

distorts-truth.

101 The Rubin Report, Dave Rubin: Why I’m Still a Liberal, accessed April 14, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/

watch?v=u8QRd18-z2M.

102 Whitney Phillips, “The Oxygen of Amplifcation: Better Practices for Reporting on Extremists, Antagonists,

and Manipulators Online” (New York: Data & Society Research Institute, May 2018).

103 The Rubin Report, Stefan Molyneux on Race and IQ (Pt. 2), accessed April 17, 2018, https://www.youtube.

com/watch?v=T0KKc6GbeNo.

104 Tripodi, “Searching for Alternative Facts.”

105 The Rubin Report, Larry Elder and Dave Rubin: Conservatives, Black Lives Matter, Racism (Full Interview),

accessed July 3, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IFqVNPwsLNo.

106 The Rubin Report, Larry Elder LIVE: Kanye, the Media, and New Conservatives, accessed July 13, 2018,

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e32duDpXRyI.

107 Blaire White, Female Privilege | Antifeminism, accessed May 18, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/

watch?v=F3pYjYxl86E.

108 Blaire White, Q&A.

109 Blaire White, Feminism Is Pointless, accessed May 9, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/

watch?v=EsPaFRjkuz4.

110 “GLAAD Media Reference Guide - Transgender,” GLAAD, September 9, 2011, https://www.glaad.org/

reference/transgender.

111 Blaire White, ARE TRAPS GAY?, accessed May 18, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=29NL0j_fNrs.

112 “YouTube Launches ‘Super Chat,’ a Way for Creators to Make Money from Their Live Streams,” TechCrunch

(blog), January 12, 2017, http://social.techcrunch.com/2017/01/12/youtube-launches-super-chat-a-way-for-creators-

to-make-money-from-their-live-streams/.

113 Ishmael N. Daro and Craig Silverman, “How YouTube’s ‘Super Chat’ System Is Pushing Video Creators

Toward More Extreme Content,” BuzzFeed, accessed May 30, 2018, https://www.buzzfeed.com/ishmaeldaro/

youtube-comments-hate-speech-racist-white-nationalists-super.

114 Asian Daddy, IRL BLOODSPORTS with Andy Warski & Baked Alaska | Live Daily Vlog | $5 Text to Speech $30

MEDIA, accessed July 13, 2018, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_Y-lQ6VI98.

Data & Society Research Institute datasociety.net

ENDNOTES

115 Daro and Silverman, “How YouTube’s ‘Super Chat’ System Is Pushing Video Creators Toward More Extreme

Content.”

116 Tarleton Gillespie, “The Politics of ‘Platforms,’” New Media & Society 12, no. 3 (May 1, 2010): 347–64,

https://doi.org/10.1177/1461444809342738.